


Learning How to Share

by PMC



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Biting, Blindfolds, Bondage, Breathplay, Choking, Claustrophobia, Deep Throating, Edging, Emetophilia, Eye Licking, Gentle Sex, Hair Pulling, Loving Humiliation, M/M, Marking, Massage, Multiple Orgasms, No Aftercare, Raunch, Rough Sex, Safe Word Use, Sensory Deprivation, Soft sex, Sweat, Temperature Play, Thomas' Anger is a pretty chill guy, Tongue Sucking, Urine Drinking, Very Light Breathplay, Vomiting, Watersports, deep fisting, ear licking, ear plugs, fisting with three fists, gagging, in an actual sensory deprivation tank, light painplay, literal sex wrestling, mention of tickling but no actual tickling, no actual body horror or violence featured, nose licking, not actual prolapsing, sensory play, spitting, visions of a corpse, visions of body horror, visions of prolapsing, visions of violence, way way softer than the tags make it sound, weirdly detailed descriptions of a cicida
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PMC/pseuds/PMC
Summary: Deceit teaches Roman how to take care of the dark sides.  He discovers new things about each of them- and himself.Virgil first. Soft and slow and sweet.Anger next.  It's a game, but one Roman needs to win.For Sorrow, a moment of beauty and joy.Now Remus.  Indulgence with a side of controlFinally Janus.  Provided Roman can convince him that he deserves some pampering of his own-(Surprisingly soft sex with an emphasis on character exploration and eventual Janus hurt/comfort)
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Deceit Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders, Creativity | Roman Sanders/Dark Creativity | Remus Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders, Deceit Sanders/Anger, Roman Sanders/Anger, Roman Sanders/Sorrow
Comments: 42
Kudos: 222





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Sort of AU where sex between friends and family is normalized, and it's typical for each person to have a day periodically where the focus is just on them and their particular needs. Deceit has always taken care of the dark sides' alone. Now he's teaching Roman, and Roman is determined to get things right. I'll add tags as I go, but this will include Anxiety/Roman, Roman/Anger, Roman/Sorrow, and yes, Roman/Remus. I will list the relevant tags at the chapter notes and PLEASE HEED THE TAGS. Virgil is a simple sort, but this is going to get...messy...later on. I mean extreme other end of the spectrum from this first chapter.)
> 
> (Edited to fix the frankly appalling tense change midway through.)
> 
> Also includes a surprising amount of Deceit angst and hurt/comfort for what amounts to a porn fic.)
> 
> This is my first straight porny fic and I would be delighted by feedback
> 
> Tags for this chapter: anal fingering, soft and gentle, aftercare, mostly non-verbal Virgil (he's a quiet boy during sexy times), light anxiety during sex
> 
> (Yes, I am aware of the duplication glitch! Two of my fics have it.)

“Soft and slow and sweet.” Janus's voice is low and hushed and just a little teasing. “He's a sensitive soul, our Virgil.”

*Our* Virgil. It's new still and terrifying. The division between them- all of them- is fracturing, and Roman so badly wants to get this right.

He's in awe, still, that Janus had chosen him to be first. That Virgil had agreed. It's heady, but heavy too, knowing that he represents Logan and Patton as well as himself. Janus had thought it would be too much, the three of them at one time. He's to report back, to help the others learn what he's being privileged to know, and so it's Roman, just Roman, here in the quiet, dim bedroom.

...three may have been too much, but Roman isn't sure that just Roman is **enough**.

“Soft and slow and sweet,” Janus says again in a sigh. He pulls Virgil a little closer, soothing him with whispered words when he frets.

Virgil is...he's beautiful like this. Curled up tight against Janus's side and half in his lap, all that lovely skin pale in the gentle dusk light. (Even the light, soft- it seems to drift, seems to eddy like snow, and when it settles on Virgil's cheekbones it takes Roman's breath away.) His eyes are closed. His face is still, and next time Roman wants to be the one who gentles him, who brings Virgil down to this space where he can rest.

“He likes to be held,” Janus goes on, “Firmly, so he can feel it.” And indeed his arms are everywhere, stroking along Virgil's bare flanks, rubbing circles on his back, or simply just holding, cradling the other man until he must feel utterly surrounded. Kept. Safe. Roman will have to find a way to mimic it, as best he can.

And so it goes, for a time. Janus simply holds Virgil, and Virgil lets himself be held, lets himself be touched. Roman thinks that if that were the whole of it he would be utterly content. Now and again Janus hums, low and rumbling. Mutters little things, 'soft' and 'slow' and 'sweet', dropping it into the cadence of a song.

Until...

“Come closer.” Janus does not look at Roman. All of his focus is on Virgil, his brow furrowed deep. He's nervous too, Roman realizes. It must never get easier, having responsibility for something so precious.

Roman stands from his chair and moves around the couch to stand where Janus indicates. He's quiet, a little Roman mouse, but still Virgil shifts uneasy, one eye opening to find him. Roman smiles, and Virgil's lips twitch before that eye drifts closed again. He snuggles that much closer, pressing an idle kiss against Janus's throat that makes him shiver.

One of Janus's lower arms lifts. He's clothed still, Janus, right down to the bowler, but his gloves are tighter now, latex instead of cloth. He snaps his fingers (muffled, and Roman knows he will have to pay attention to that, the little things) and his fingers glisten under the strange, drifting light.

“Use more then you think you need,” he says, “And remember...”

“Soft and slow and sweet,” Roman says with him, and watches with absolute concentration as Janus circles Virgil's hole.

He doesn't penetrate, not for a long time. Just rubs that little furl with the pads of his fingers. Coaxing it to soften, drifting higher sometimes to rub the smooth, tender skin behind Virgil's balls. Time, Roman thinks. Time will be the important thing, so that Virgil never feels rushed, never feels scheduled, a burden to be fit in between others.

Janus keeps at it until that tiny hole pulses. He stills then, finger pressing in to feel the want growing there. “You see?” he asks Roman.

Roman nods. Janus clicks again, considers, then again, until his fingers drip with it. He presses into Virgil slowly and smoothly, with such care there must be scarcely any burn. Rocks his wrist, the pattern rhythmic and deliberate. Nothing to guess at, and that's key Roman thinks. Consistency.

Virgil sighs. His hips are beginning to move, ever-so-slightly, pressing back against Janus's hand. His head drops lower and he mouths at Janus's collarbone, sucking at the cloth covering it until it darkens.

It's a long, long time before Janus give him two. Virgil whines when it happens, face scrunching a little and hips moving faster. Janus's knuckles rub at his taint, but he ignores Virgil's cock entirely. It curves up against his stomach, the tip of it just barely clearing the foreskin and pearling with fluids. They share the same cock, of course, but it looks so much prettier on Virgil.

Janus is muttering again. Nonsense words, mostly, little half-songs and whispered promises that Roman knows he's not meant to hear.

“Just this,” he tells Roman, “He'll do most of it himself.”

And Virgil is working for it, grinding filthy and lovely back against those pumping fingers. There's a flush rising at his cheeks. A hint of sweat at his brow, and Roman watches with something twisting bitter in his chest.

He could have had this **years** ago. They've wasted, all of them, so much damn time.

But even as his hips move Virgil is going tense. Biting at his lip, throwing his head back, and something in it suggests more panic then pleasure. He whines again. His hands curl in Janus's cloak, white-knuckled and pleading.

“He's alright,” Janus says when Roman steps forward, “It's the loss of control...it scares him. Just let him know you're there.”

He follows his own instructions, arms tightening around Virgil and bending to layer kisses on his blushing cheeks.

“You can let go,” he says, “I have you. Don't fight it, raindrop. I've got you...”

Virgil's hand shoots down to grip Janus's wrist, holding the man's hand steady as he rides his fingers. Not soft and slow and sweet anymore but quick and hard. He groans and his cock flexes, spilling a blurt of cum that trails down its length.

Janus milks him through it, then pulls his fingers free (so, so slowly, so gently) and goes back to circling until Virgil slumps against him, lax and boneless. He gives him a moment longer, then eases out from under him, flexing his wrist and shushing Virgil when he whimpers.

“Water.” Janus has to help Virgil drink, little sips only, stopping him from gulping when he tries. “Make sure he's clean and dry.” A sin-soft terrycloth and a dab of ointment to the reddened pucker, just in case. “Blankets-” A heap of them, and a Virgil-burrito was everything Roman had never known he wanted. “-and don't forget Ana.”

Janus offers the plush spider, grinning fondly when it's grabbed and dragged into the bundle. “He'll sleep, now,” he says, “You'll need to stay...”

He gives Roman a sharp look at that.” “Of course!” Roman protests, a touch too loudly, but **really**. Why in the world would he ever want to leave?

Janus eyes him. He seems satisfied with what he sees and turns away, wriggling his way back behind Virgil and spooning him tight. Virgil is already out, snoring in the most endearing way.

(It occurs to Roman, quite suddenly, that he might possibly be just a little bit in love.)

He stands awkward for a moment. Lesson over, but...

Janus rolls his eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

Roman brightens and scrambles to join them. It's a tight fit, and it feels odd, to lay across from Janus and watch his eyes blink drowsy over Virgil's tousled hair. Janus himself looks almost insultingly unruffled, though he at least deigned to set aside the hat.

“Keep the lights on,” Janus whispers, “He'll...he'll leave when he wakes. Try not to take it personally. He doesn't like to feel vulnerable.”

Roman could feel the hurt of that already, but he nods and tries to smile. “Thank you.” The smiles grows into a smirk. “...raindrop?”

Janus's scowl was not nearly so impressive now that Roman had watched him handle Virgil with such care. “He'd kill me if I said it any other time.” He pauses, looking Roman over again, the slit pupil of his snake eye gone thin and hard as a blade. “Don't fuck this up. I'll remind you I know where you sleep.”

The threat seems sincere enough, but it makes Roman grin, just a little. Because- **did** Janus know where he slept? Once the answer would have been easy- Roman's own room, with its lush and lonely bed, or with one of the other lights. But there was Virgil now, and soon the others...

...there were so many more options now, and Roman is **delighted** by it.

Janus leans up over Virgil and swats at him. “Stop smirking and go to sleep,” he grumbles, “Tomorrow won't be so easy.”

Roman is still grinning as he closes his eyes.

(Later- Janus would be there, the first few times, hovering and correcting and insulting, until finally he pronounced Roman ready to go it alone.

The first time- it hadn't gone perfectly, not by any means. Roman had forgotten to muffle the click when he snapped his fingers, making Virgil jump a mile and slam his foot into Roman's shin. It had been clumsy and awkward, trying to both finger and hold him. Both of them had been nervous, and Roman's fingers had gone numb long before Virgil relaxed enough to climax. And Roman **had** forgotten Ana, for a moment at least.

It hadn't gone perfectly...but it had still been perfect. And best of all?

When Roman woke, Virgil was there, watching him with lazy, hooded eyes.

Best of all?

Virgil **stayed**.)


	2. Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It's just a game,” Deceit tells him. He pauses. Smirks. “More or less.” 
> 
> He leans in close to pat Roman's cheek, and that smirk is a devilish twitch that promises trouble. 
> 
> “...still, best you play to win.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: rough sex, pain play, light breathplay, sex wrestling, size kink, mention of tickling but no graphic description of such, sweat
> 
> (Yes, I am aware of the duplication glitch! Two of my fics have it.)

“It's just a game,” Janus tells him. He pauses. Smirks. “More or less.”

He leans in close to pat Roman's cheek, and that smirk is a devilish twitch that promises trouble.

“...still, best you play to win.”

* * *

It once pained Roman to admit it, but Thomas was not a particularly original child.

Roman himself stands as testimony. The teller of tales is himself a copy of a copy. Cribbed whole cloth from the movies Thomas watched on repeat as a boy, movies that in turn were based on older, darker fables.

His logic a teacher, his temptation a snake. There's little mystery to any of them, but Roman has made his peace with that. Has come to accept that building atop the scaffolding on the old can be a worthy part of creating something new. Whatever their makings, they have each made theirselves their own.

His morality a father, his anxiety an edgelord emo. His anger?

A bully jock, straight from every 80s afterschool special. Sen's tracksuit is an assault, an intensity of orange neon that punches the eye. They all share the same body, of course, but he holds himself broad. Chest out, shoulders back, hands fisted to showcase the tendons in his arms. Sen breathes through his mouth as he watches them approach, brows beetled tight over mismatched eyes.

The left is Thomas', warm brown and pleasant. The right is darker, rich mahogany, the iris leaving only a thin strip of white around the edges. A grizzly's eye, and it suits him.

“Ro!”

Roman laughs as he's swept into a hug that lifts his feet from the floor. Sen spins them round and round, letting go with an abruptness that has Roman staggering.

“Look at you slumming it!” Sen's grin is wide and sharp, a glittering of fangs. “Ready to watch me put down a snake?”

Janus rolls his eyes. Snaps, and the room shifts and stretches. Becomes something like a gym, a wide open space with a thickly cushioned floor. Snaps again, and his complicated grab is replaced by something more form-fitting, a sort of long-sleeved leotard with a tastefully muted scales motif down one side. Still gloved, of course, and for perhaps the first time Roman wonders at that. 

Sen simply strips bare. Efficient and shameless, tossing that blazing tracksuit away to puddle against the wall. He makes a production of stretching, twisting side to side and bending double to touch his toes.

Show-off.

Finished, he bounces on the balls of his feet. His cock bounces with him, already thick and ruddy. It looks impatient, that cock, fat-tipped and vaguely threatening.

Janus passes Roman his hat for safekeeping. “You may wish to give us some room.”

Roman feels his cheeks burn hot as he scrabbles back. Even so he's careful with the bowler, gripping it gentle by the rim. Silly, probably, but it feels like it means something. Offered up casually, with easy trust that Roman will see it safe.

Sen and Janus circle each other. Take each others' measure with little feints and dodges, and Sen's grin widens to show lush pink gums.

Janus doesn't smile. He's focused, the pupil of his snake eye pulsing slow. He spins aside when Sen lunges for him, and the grace in it surprises Roman.

He's not quite so lucky a second time. Sen catches him around the belly and takes him to the mat with force enough to drive the air from Janus's lungs. Sen's triumphant growl ends in a gasp when Janus hooks a leg behind his knee and topples him in turn.

And now the real battle begins.

It's a little like wrestling, Roman thinks as the pair grapple and roll across the mat. But only a little, because let's face it...the closest Thomas ever got to the circle was cheering on his brother in high school. Certainly the moves aren't regulation, what with the hair pulling and decidedly unorthodox groping.

Janus holds his ground. Gives as good as he gets, and that's impressive, really, or maybe just unexpected. Janus is slick, he's sly...but strong? Roman has been underestimating him, and that's only to Janus's credit.

Still, he's tiring. Starting to breath hard, and there's a bright, high flush at his nape.

Sen, on the other hand, looks fresh as a daisy and like he's having the time of his life. He snaps playful at Janus's cheek and laughs wild when Janus jams a hand under his chin and pushes him back.

Janus just looks a little grim and a whole lot sweaty. Roman can smell the rising musk of them both, and it's not at all unpleasant.

For Sen, it's all a game. For Janus...

 _'(Best you play to win,'_ he'd told Roman.

Because Sen needed the challenge, he'd gone on to explain. Needed that release, needed to feel his heart pound and his muscles strain.

But even more...he needed to know that Janus **could** win, if it ever came down to it. Needed to know that he would not be allowed to run wild.)

...a responsibility.

Sen has him pinned. Flat on his back, snarling in his face. Roman is starting to wonder if he should step in when Janus wraps his legs around Sen's waist and pulls hard to the side, making them both tumble. What happens next is a blur, flashquick as the strike of a snake. It ends with Sen in a chokehold, arm pulled behind his back and held by the wrist.

Janus leans over him. Uses all of his weight to press Sen down into the mat and holds tight through the bucking and thrashing. When Sen finally tires himself out Janus rises up enough to grind against his ass.

Point made, Janus eases up just slightly. “Pause,” he rasps.

Sen obligingly stills. Drops his head, heaving hard, and the sweat drips from his chin to patter to the mat. That ridiculous grin is wider then ever, stretching his cheeks taunt.

He's lost, and he couldn't look happier.

Thus far Janus has confined himself to only the standard number of limbs. Now he sprouts a multitude, stretching each in turn. He slides one hand between Sen's cheeks. Wiggles out the plug there slow and easy and tosses it aside with the same disregard Sen had shown his tracksuit. It lands with a meaty, lub-soaked squelch, and Roman tries not to gawk at the size of the thing.

Janus uses another hand to slap Sen's flank, drawing a delightful shiver. “Pause is a temporary stop,” he tells Roman, “Take my advice and don't try penetration without it.”

Sen giggles. It takes Roman a moment to understand, and he winces when he does. Trying to aim for a moving target sounds like an excellent way to jam his cock against something quite a bit less yielding. Roman sometimes enjoyed a bit of pain with his pleasure, but accidentally breaking his dick isn't something that interests him.

“Noted,” he says.

Janus snaps and grimaces deeply. Making himself bigger? Shapeshifting into someone else entirely was a trivial thing for most of the sides, but reshaping their own bodies could be a bit uncomfortable. Especially the intimate bits. Like sliding on someone else's shoes, too loose or too tight or just not quite right.

(Logan had a theory about it. Something about the mind/body map and sexual development. It had all gone a bit over Roman's head, truth be told.)

Janus snaps again, reconfiguring his leotard so it opens at the groin. Roman catches only a glimpse before Janus snaps his hips forward.

Nothing soft and slow and sweet about it. Sen howls, pushing back as Janus drives into him. With one arm still held behind his back he's unsteady, and soon enough he folds the other and drops his chest down, biting idle at his own bicep. When he threatens to draw blood Janus tightens the chokehold, earning a gurgle that manages to sound positively elated.

Sen, it seems, likes quite a bit more pain then Roman.

He can see that Janus is being careful, though. He still has that look of deep concentration, leaning just a little to the side so he can see Sen's face. And what a sight! Tongue lolling, eyes screwed shut, the veins standing high at his temples. Sen is most definitely getting the work-out he wanted.

But it puts Janus just a little off-balance, that lean. Sen takes advantage by lurching up suddenly. Janus hits the mat on the back, and before he has a chance to get his bearings Sen is looming over him. Catches the upper arms by the wrists and ignores the others.

Janus, it seems, can be trusted not to cheat.

“Pause,” he huffs. Both of them are panting and the sweat has matted their hair down flat.

Janus goes lax. Well, almost. His cock curves toward his stomach, and bigger is one word for it. Generous might be more fitting. If Sen's cock had looked threatening before then Janus's imagined one looks positively dangerous.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sen says when he sees Roman's expression, “So this bear's a bit of a size queen, so what?”

“No judgment!” Roman is quick to reassure, “You do you, Ursa Sexy.”

Sen snorts. “How long did it take you to come up with that one?”

Roman is saved from having to admit he spent an hour last night trying to come up with bear themed nicknames when Janus wiggles. “Could we possibly move this along?”

He half expects Sen to reverse their roles entirely. Instead he throws a leg over Janus and straddles him. Transfers both his wrists to one hand and reaches back to hold that monster of a cock steady while he sinks down onto it.

Sen rolls his hips in a filthy deep grind. Groans with a rumble Roman feels in his belly. He leans forward so he can rub his cock across Janus's leotard, smearing sticky strings of precum across the black fabric. He takes himself in hand and tugs with a twist over the head, head tipping back as his hips work faster.

“You'll have to discuss limits,” Janus tells Roman. Calm as anything, like he isn't being ridden into the floor. “It can make things a bit uneven, but there's no help for that. For example...”

Roman is ready for it, this time. He can't blame Sen for waiting to touch himself, but it means he's still holding Janus's wrists with only one hand. It's Janus's turn to wrench free and rear up. Sen shakes himself out of his daze and tries to block him, but it's too late. Janus punches him in the pec with one hand and grips him by the balls with the other.

**Squeezes.**

Sen howls again. Really more of a yowl, high and breaking. In one smooth motion Janus is pressing him back, still impaled, hooking Sen's knees over his shoulders and working him hard. Sen's back arches and his cock jumps as he cums with a noise more animal then human.

“Yield,” he whispers when he has the air for it. Janus eases back, turning a little away from them both to snap twice. Sen giggles like a drunk.

“Holy fuck,” he breathes, and Roman nods in fervent agreement.

Sen is still laid out flat on his back, but Janus staggers up to his feet, wavering off Roman's offer of assistance. “As I was saying...” He's back in his usual outfit already, taking pains to settle the caplet just so. “...I myself do not enjoy such rough handling. Sen, however...”

He glances down to solicit the other side's opinion. Nudges him with a loafer when he's slow to respond.

“Holy **fuck** ,” Sen says again, and Janus nods, taking it as his due.

“He does prefer to reserve it for the later stages of the match.” Janus is still out of breath but trying very hard to pretend that he's not, snatching little gulps of air between words. “Things would be over rather quickly otherwise.”

Roman steps closer to offer Janus his bowler. “That was...” He shakes his head, chewing at his lip as he tries to find words for it. “I'm not sure...I mean, I **want** to, I just...”

He startles a bit when Sen curls a warm hand around his ankle. “Hey...” He waits for Roman to look at him, and his smile now is small and kind despite the jutting canines. “No worries. I'll take good care of you.”

Janus hums. “And now let's get **you** taken care of. Ready to get up?”

Sen needs a little help levering himself off the mat, but he's surprisingly steady on his feet, considering.

Janus snaps the room back to its usual state (and goes a little pale as he does...manipulation takes energy, and the side has to be exhausted already.)

“Drink.” Janus has Gatorade waiting on ice, and Sen only whines a little when he stops him from outright chugging it.

Next there's lukewarm shower to rinse away the sweat and cum. Then a bath to soak the muscles, and Sen is starting to balk. Roman is ready for a nap just from **watching** , so it baffles him that Sen seems more peppy then ever.

“He'll run off if you let him.” Janus pushes Sen back down into the tub for the fifth time with the nonchalance of someone just about done with life, the universe, and everything. “But he'll crash soon enough. He's passion, remember...he'll burn himself out if you aren't careful.”

Ah. Roman can sympathize. He's passion too, of a sort, and he supposes this isn't all that different from the giddy high he gets after an all-night writing session.

Bath done, Janus bullies Sen up to bed. Insists on checking him for damage...he's a little red and swollen, but nothing a bit of balm and a good night's sleep won't fix.

Janus lifts a hand. Motions to snap...

Roman catches him by the wrist. “What do you need?”

Janus eyes him for a moment before capitulating with good grace. “Thinner gloves and massage oil. Almond would be preferred.”

“I'm **fine** ,” Sen gripes, but he's laid out on his belly and Janus is sitting on his ass and he's not going anywhere. “I don't...”

He cuts off with a groan when Janus goes to work. He's methodical, using all six arms to work out every knot and strain. Sen's grunts and breathy little gasps make Roman uncomfortably aware of his own arousal. He could take care of it, he knows, but he's trying to be a good student. He's here to learn, not enjoy himself. 

As rough as Janus had been earlier he's gentle now. Petting as much as massaging, soothing Sen down until his eyelids are fluttering. By the time Janus has him roll over Sen is nearly boneless. Still Janus takes his time here too, until finally he works his way down to Sen's feet, smiling a little when the side flexes into it even in his sleep.

“...he needs a bit of pampering, now and again,” he confides over Sen's rolling snores, “He's not as tough as you might think. He is **Thomas'** anger, after all...”

Roman laughs a little at that. “No, I know.” He'd always gotten on with Sen. Of all the dark sides, Sen was...well, he was the easiest. Uncomplicated. Anger tended to be a straightforward thing, and so Sen was a straightforward kind of guy. Roman suspected he was a dark side more because of what he **could** do and Sen's own desire to avoid it than any overt rejection by Thomas. “You...that was a damn good show you put on. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get my ass kicked.”

Janus finishes and pulls the sheet up to cover Sen. “No blanket, he runs hot,” he says almost absently, “It's better if you win, but it's fine if you lose. Especially at first. If you need to, fight dirty. Trust me, he won't mind.”

“Fight dirty?” Roman asks.

Janus's smirk returns, and oh yes, there's trouble there. “He's ticklish, you know.”

* * *

Roman loses the first bout.

And the second.

(Though there's something to be said for it. Sen rides him to the finish in the first and plows him rough in the second, and Roman comes away with a few bruises and absolutely no complaints.)

He suspects he only wins the third because Sen takes pities on him.

But he wins the fourth honestly. More or less. (It feels a little underhanded, taking Janus's advice, but to say it was effective would be an understatement.)

And little by little, Roman improves. He learns his own strength, and takes real pride every time he gets Sen on his back. ' _I have you,'_ he tells him without words, ' _I have you, and I can keep you if I need to.'_ A heady thing, for both of them, to know that it was true.

But mostly they laugh, and they fuck, and as games go...

It just might be one of Roman's favorites. 

  
  



	3. Sorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...and we're at the point where we're starting to get a little weird, I think? 
> 
> In this chapter: Sensory play, sensory deprivation (with an actual sensory deprivation tank), blindfolds, ear plugs, temperature play, Wartenberg wheel, nipple clamps, sounding, anal fingering and anal sex, edging, brief description of claustrophobia, safe word use, *excruciatingly detailed descriptions of a cicada* (no actual insect appears in the story) 
> 
> (If anyone reads this oddity, any guesses as to Annae's animal?)

“I have to admit,” Roman says, “This one is new to me.”

The water cradles him, blood warm and sturdy with salt; Roman couldn't sink if he wanted to. He can scarcely tell where his skin ends and the water begins, and it's a wee bit disconcerting.

Janus peers down at him, upside down from Roman's perspective and looking far too amused. “Ready for the rest?”

Roman nods. A snap and there's a blindfold over his eyes. Another, and his ears are covered by something that deafens them completely. The suddenness of the loss makes him jolt, but Janus's hand is on his shoulder, a grounding touch. He waits for Roman to relax before withdrawing, giving one last little pat along the way.

At first it's...nice. Calming, though Roman struggles to find anything arousing in it. He floats in the silent dark and watches the colors bloom behind his eyelids. He's always wished he could find a way to paint them, that deep, deep purple and not-quite-red he can never quite find a match to. Gradually he becomes aware of a whooshing sound; his pulse, he realizes, and something like unease crawls down his spine.

He tries to shift. The water resists, and he goes from coddled to confined in an instant. The whooshing is getting louder, a tidal thrum that threatens to sweep him out to sea.

“Red.”

Roman can't hear his own voice, but he can feel the vibration of it in his throat. An instant later the water is gone and he can see and hear again.

Janus helps him sit up. Rubs gentle at his back while Roman gathers himself.

“Oh,” he says when he can, “Oh, I did not like that **at all**.”

Janus grimaces. “Apologies. Many people find it pleasant, but it can be overwhelming.”

“Don't apologize,” Roman tells him, “You never know until you try, right? But I thought the idea was to get Annae **out** of his own head for a bit.”

Janus still looks a little guilty, but when Roman moves to stand he doesn't stop him. Even manages a smirk, though it lacks a bit of that devilish flair.

“Watch and learn,” he says, and Roman intends to do just that.

* * *

“Your list?” Janus asks.

“Our tree at the college. Remember?” Annae fiddles with his ears as he speaks, rubbing the soft gray fur between his fingers. “The one Thomas would study under?”

Roman nods. Their own little spot, and Thomas had felt so grown-up, with his laptop and his coffee and **his place.**

Sitting this close to Annae, he can feel the ache of it. Those summer days long distant. The potential before them, the sense that Thomas was only just beginning. At the same time the sense that he had been found, no longer a nebulous child but solid in his skin.

“Sorry,” Annae whispers when Roman sighs soft, “I'm not so good at the bedroom talk.”

There was a time not long distant when Roman would have argued. Would have insisted Annae was sexy, smoldering, a vision in gray. Or, conversely, hastened to reassured him that he didn't need to be those things.

“I'm so happy I get to share this with you today,” he says instead, “Thank you for trusting me.”

Sex is not the only thing Roman has been learning. He's been watching how Janus handles Sen's anger, Virgil's fear, Annae's sorrow. Patiently, calmly. Poking and prodding when needed, offering comfort when they could tolerate it, but never feeding into the spiral.

Annae is delicious when he blushes. Even the insides of his ears flush vivid, the pinkish-purple darkening to mauve.

Those ears hang long, framing Annae's tired face. His hair is a black, touseled stripe that hangs forward in a tangled forelock and extends far down his nape. Like all the dark sides, his eyes are mismatched. The iris on the left is brown; on the right it's black and blends into the pupil.

No tail...small mercy, in Annae's own opinion, though Roman thinks he might have found it cute.

(...no, Thomas was most certainly not an original child.)

“Your list?” Janus asks again. The tank looms behind him, a solid presence that makes Roman shiver.

Annae closes his eyes. Hums a tune Roman half remembers. “The sunlight on the grass,” he says, “The corner table at the library, the one with the pride sticker on the edge. The Frisbee players shouting on the quad...”

The ache is heavy now. Still it's not altogether unpleasant. It's a soft sort of regret, a want for something that already was.

Sorrow, perhaps more than any other emotions, has flavors. Devastating grief. Crushing apathy.

Gentle melancholy.

Janus hums back the rest of the melody. “Lovely,” he says softly, and he sounds like he means it, “But something from today, if you could?”

Annae curls himself a little tighter. Squeezes his eyes shut until it looks painful, and the part of Roman that plays the prince itches to step in. To list off everything good and pure he knows.

A sharp look from Janus quells him. It's a good few minutes before the tension in Annae's shoulders eases.

“...Thomas saw a cloud that looks like a rabbit,” he offers. Squints open an eye to check for a reaction, and relaxes further when they nod. “He got to pet a dog?”

He falters again, clearly searching for something, anything, else to add. Brightens suddenly, lips quirking in a smile.

“There was a cicada. On the side of the house.”

“The cicada, then.” When Annae opens his eyes Janus offers his hand. Pulls him up off the couch and leads him to the tank of salt water.

“Ready?”

Annae frets. Sneaks a glance at Roman, and he's playing with his ears again, running the length of them through his fingers.

“We can do something else,” he says, “Something easier.”

Janus laughs that off. “What could be easier? You'll be doing all the work.”

Roman steps forward. He can feel Janus's eyes on his back, but he makes no move to intervene. Trusting Roman, then, with something infinitely more precious then his hat, and it makes something warm and anxious coil in his belly.

“Can I help you get settled?” he asks.

It's a little awkward, sure, but he doesn't do a terrible job of it. Soon enough Annae floats on his back, arms lax at his sides. The tank is a decent size, but not so large they can't reach him easily while sitting on the side.

“Ready for the rest?” Janus asks, as he had with Roman.

The blindfold is a thick, heavy thing, the earplugs large and chunky. Janus fusses briefly with their fit before sitting back on his heels.

“This part may take a bit,” he says.

For ten minutes Annae drifts. Sometimes his breath hitches like he's on the cusp of tears. Sometimes he mumbles, indistinct and unintelligible.

Janus uses the time to talk about the tank itself. How it is based on something real, but isn't quite, of course. The water thicker, more of a gel. The salt in it will not sting. The temperature would adjust itself as Annae heated up or cooled down.

All this Roman already knows, but he's found that Janus finds comfort in repetition. He's a methodical creature, Janus. Roman himself is far more mercurial, and he thinks it should chafe, the way Janus so carefully lays out his plans.

Instead he listens avidly, and finds new appreciation for structure and routine.

Janus finishes detailing the design of the blindfold (no seams, nothing to chafe or catch) and nods to Annae. “There. See?”

Roman doesn't at first. Annae is still in the same position. “ **Look** ,” Janus urges him when he says as much.

Annae breathes slowly, evenly. Once he mutters something, but the tone of it is slow, almost slurred. His face is still, the lines of worry smoothing out to something placid.

“Now we begin,” Janus says.

He doesn't touch Annae directly at first. Just slides his hand through the gel at his side, swirling it a little to make it wobble. Annae doesn't flinch, doesn't jolt, just fills his lungs with a deep, even breath and nods just slightly.

Janus drags his gloved fingertips up Annae's ribs. Across his belly, making him shiver and suck in. Up to his chest, thumbing briefly at a nipple before patting twice at his shoulder.

A signal, Roman knows.

“The cicada,” Annae says. Not a whisper, but soft and a little distant. “Perched right there next to the doorbell.”

Another pat; acknowledgment. Janus drags his hand back down. Tweaks at Annae's nipples until they pebble, then leans close to blow hot across them. Pats twice.

“Green!” Annae says on a gasp, “Just...just the head. The prettiest soft green.”

Janus pats once. Turns it into firm strokes, working his way all the way down Annae's legs and back up again, ignoring his groin along the way. He clicks to summon rubber-tipped clamps, holding them up for Roman's inspection before closing them slow on those pretty pink tits.

“The base, not the tip,” he says as he does, “It's more about sensation for him, not pain.”

Annae tries to both arch into the pressure and away. Had the water been real it would have sloshed, left him unbalanced and uneasy. The almost-gel holds steady, lets him move without the risk of sinking or swamping himself, and the unreality of it is something Roman knows takes focus.

Janus pats twice.

“Oh.” He's sensitive, Annae. Gorgeously so. They're only just getting started, and he's already starting to thicken. “Um...his back was brown. The green just flowed into it...”

Janus pats. Clicks. The thing that he summons looks wicked, a wheel of spikes on a short handle. He motions for Roman to offer his arm, running it up his wrist and then across his palm so he can feel the difference. A heavier touch might have drawn blood, but Janus uses only enough pressure to make it tingle and prickle.

“Wartenberg wheel,” he explains, “I prefer you not to use it until you've had adequate practice, but it can be quite effective.”

Roman feels his own skin shrivel in sympathy when Janus uses it on the sole of Annae's foot. He does jolt this time, leg curling up and toes crunching, but Janus captures his ankle and gives no mercy.

Before he had given the signal during a break between one sensation and the next. This time he uses another hand to pat twice at Annae's leg even as he teases him sweetly.

“Oh! It's...” Annae gurgles a gasp when Janus brings another hand and wheel into play on his free foot. “Squiggles! Its back. Like...oh!...hieroglyphs. The deepest, richest brown...”

“Understand?” Janus asks Roman as he pats once and eases off a bit.

Roman nods, mouth gone desert dry.

Janus, he realizes as he watches, is an **artist**.

He draws the most exquisite noises from Annae. Gasps and groans and muffled squeals.

“ _It's about sensation_ ,” he'd told Roman.

Janus rubs ice on Annae's blood-dark nipples. Holds cold water in his own mouth and kisses him deep. Drips wax in scrolling curves across his entire body. Traces a feather across the insides of his ears. Slaps at his thighs with a curved palm, just hard enough to rouse a mild sting.

“Look,” he tells Roman. He points out the way Annae's muscles pull taunt when he's tickled. The way the goosebumps lift the hair on his arms. The flush that starts on his cheeks and spreads down his chest. The soft pink spreading around the edges of the wax.

Roman knows this body they share. He lives in it, after all. But through Janus's eyes it is transformed. He's seeing both himself and Annae for the first time, and he realizes they are beautiful.

As things progress Annae starts to move more freely. It's lovely, the way he thrashes slow or shudders down to his spread toes, but there's a time or two when the substance he floats on wavers a bit more then it should. Becoming just a bit more water then gel.

Never for more then a blink, and as always Roman is impressed, aroused, and a bit terrified by Janus's focus. Things in daydreams as so easy to lose track of, and when it happens they might shift or dissipate or become something else altogether. The more complex the creation, the further from reality its rules, the greater the risk of it pulling free of control. But every time the tank threatens to lose integrity, Janus catches it with a speed that Roman, Creativity himself, isn't sure he could match.

 **Especially** not with such a bounty of distractions.

And through it all Janus pushes Annae to paint his own picture. It should have broken the mood, hearing a cicada, of all things, described in such lavish detail.

The delicate web of the veins in its wings. The dark spots that marked their edges. The deep dark luster of its eyes.

Instead Roman finds himself throbbing, and Annae is so hard it must hurt, the head of his cock more purple then red. It twitches from time to time on its own, dribbling precum that glistens on his belly. When Janus at last gently traces the vein with a finger Annae garbles out a plea, hips rising as he bumps his cock hopefully against the man's hand.

Janus does wrap his hand around it...but only cradles that rigid length, chuckling a bit when Annae snarls a curse in his general direction. “You're familiar with sounding, yes?” Janus asks Roman, and it's Roman who groans and cups himself.

“It's easier to start when flaccid,” Janus says, and Roman chuckles a bit at how much he sounds like Logan in that moment. “And a bit of a break now will let him go longer and make things more intense later.”

He rubs slow circles on Annae's thigh, soothing him until his breathing starts to slow. Janus himself breathes smoothly, but there's an almost feverish glint in his eyes that worries Roman. The break is as much for him as Annae, he suspects.

' _He loves them so much_ ,' he thinks, and perhaps it's only Annae's lingering influence, but the thought rouses that same slow, melancholy ache in his chest.

' _You'll be doing all the work_ ,' Janus had reassured, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The amount of care Janus pours into maintaining this space, this experience....

He holds nothing back. Gives all of himself with a sincerity that **hurts** to witness. It turns sex into something nearly sacred, and Roman finds himself mourning that he has never been the subject of such devotion.

When Annae softens enough Janus summons the sound. It's a simple, heavy length of metal with a gentle s-curve, and Janus positively drenches it and Annae's slit with lube. He feeds it into Annae's urethra and then lets gravity and the sound's own weight do the work.

“Never push,” he tells Roman. Roman winces at the thought; he quite enjoys sounding and is well aware of the risks of trying to force things along.

Janus works Annae back to hardness, sliding his foreskin gentle along his shaft without much pressure. It's such a pretty sight, that hard length with the heavy steel protruding from the tiny mouth of the slit. Roman shifts uncomfortably. He glances at Janus and gets a nod; permission. With a click Roman vanishes his clothes, sighing luxurious at the freedom. Janus, of course, is fully clothed, and if he's in the same state he gives no sign.

Janus pats Annae's balls twice, chuckling fond when it makes Annae jump.

“The...ugh. The, um...” Annae trails off. Tries to work his hips. Janus presses him down and gives him absolutely nothing. “The shell!” Annae manages finally, “On the wall...”

“Watch **closely** ,” Janus commands, “This part will take practice, but I'm sure you'll both enjoy it.”

He sets to work with the sound. Sliding it ever so gently in and out. Adjusting the angle, sometimes pulling it out entirely to add more lube before sliding it back in.

He **tortures** Annae. Brings him right to the edge again and again. Has Roman make note of how his thighs strain and his balls draw up as he starts to get close. The smaller tells too, how Annae bites at his lip and scrunches his nose.

Janus never lets him tip over. Keeps him suspended in the grip of that terrible, exquisite pleasure. And each time he eases off he pats twice, pulling from Annae a litany of small wonders.

How the light had shone through the thin wall of the cicada's husk.

The split down its hunched back.

The way it clung so tightly with tiny dead claws.

“I can't!” Annae finally wails, “I...Dee, I... **please**.”

The gel ripples. Becomes almost firm as Janus pushes Annae down into it with all his arms and strength.

And then the bastard takes the tip of the sound between his lips and **hums**. At the same time, he reaches up and releases the clamps from Annae's nipples.

Annae outright **screams**. Janus pulls back as cum oozes out around the sound and dribbles down Annae's shaft and across his glove. A half dozen rough strokes and Roman follows, and he can't even bring himself to feel guilty about practicing his self-promise of restraint.

Janus slides the sound free and tosses it aside.

And Annae **breaks**.

Janus had warned Roman that tears were likely, but he'd expected a gentle sort of weeping. Annae sounds like he's being gutted. Let's loose with a wounded animal howl and reaches up with shaking hands.

Roman shoots up in alarm, but Janus is already there. He plucks Annae from the tank and shifts to sit on the floor with Thomas' Sorrow curled in his lap. “He's fine, he's fine,” he reassures Roman, “Good, even.”

Good? This was **good**?

...perhaps so, because Annae is starting to laugh. Still sobbing too, but he nuzzles up close to Janus and giggles like a drunkard.

“Cicada,” he chokes out on a sputtering chuckle. Janus just holds him, engulfs him, lets him laugh and cry and babble on about how silly the insect had looking as it flew off, heavy and bumbling.

“Understand?” Janus asks as he had before.

But this time his eyes are shrewd, and Roman knows he wants an answer. He starts to speak...then hesitates, realizing a knee-jerk response won't do. Janus rewards his restraint with a smile.

“The first part is obvious,” he says, “You take away his senses to heighten the rest of it.”

He can remember his own time in the tank vividly, how aware he'd become of every breath and the best of his own heart. He could imagine what touch would have felt like, or the prickling drag of the Wartenberg wheel.

“And then you have him focus on something. Something small?”

Janus nods. “Something Thomas found pleasant.”

“Something **now** ,” Roman adds, “And then...” He hesitates again, trying to find the right way to word it. “...and then you make him live in it.”

Janus's smile grows, and pride swells in Roman's chest.

“Sorrow is perfuse,” Janus tells him. In his lap Annae is starting to calm, though now and then his shoulders jerk with a sudden sob or a fresh peal of giggling rings out. Janus rubs his back through both, looking remarkably unperturbed considering. “Anger can come and go in a flash, and fear builds on itself, but sorrow...it's so easy for him to get stuck in it. The goal, as you say, is to get him out of his head. To make him find joy in the little, easy moments, and remind him that those moments come every day.”

Annae is down to sniffles when Janus gently pulls away the earplugs. He whispers little things close by his ear. That he is good, that he's done well, that he is cherished. And Annae, who would normally deflect or outright refuse any hint of praise, sinks into it. He lets himself be loved...

...and Janus has so very much love to give.

When Annae at last goes lax Janus vanishes the blindfold, but his hand is already there to cover Annae's eyes to ease the transition. He spreads his fingers little by little, and when he finally removes it entirely Annae blinks owlishly over at Roman.

“Cicida,” Annae tells him, with all the savor of a private joke. They laugh together, and it is funny, really, how much beauty hides all around them, just waiting to be found.

Isn't that part of what Janus has been teaching him? Not just to look but to **observe**. To see the other sides as clearly as Annae saw the cicada. He sees now how Annae's temples are dusted with fine, gray fur. He sees the delicate variations in Janus' scales, a mottling of greens and yellows and umbers, and thinks he must have been blind before to miss such a marvel.

“Come now,” Janus says when Annae seems to have wrung himself dry again, “Bed.”

He shifts Annae in his arms. Holds him close and stands, grunting a little at the effort. They pass the tank along the way, and Janus glances over.

“I've got it,” Roman hastens to tell him. He hadn't been allowed to summon anything...not this time, when he didn't know the specifics of each piece of equipment. Next time, maybe. But sending things back into the ether of Thomas' mind takes energy too, and he can take that burden, at least.

Because while Annae looks pleasantly sleepy, Janus looks **drained**. Sen yesterday, Virgil the day before that. And tomorrow...

Well, Roman is trying not to think too hard about tomorrow.

Janus settles himself on the bed with Annae still curled against him. “Water?” he says to Roman, “Some cold to drink, and a basin of warm. Oh, and washcloths, very soft.”

It's little enough to ask, but it warms Roman that Janus is willingly letting him help. Annae yawns wide as Janus coaxes him to drink. Roman vanishes the wax, and Janus wipes Annae down with absolute tenderness.

“He prefers to bathe after he wakes,” he says, “There's one last thing...”

He helps Annae lay down on his side. Spoons close behind him, nudging one of Annae's legs up to open him. “Lube, thinner gloves,” he tells Roman, not a question this time.

Janus doesn't linger long over prepping him. Even so, Annae is blinking heavy lidded by the time Janus pulls his fingers free.

Janus fumbles to open his zipper without moving away from Annae. Clicks and grimaces deeply. Almost a wince, but he pushes inside before Roman can see what he's changed.

“He needs the closeness now,” he says. He's not thrusting as much as rocking, a gentle pulse of the hips. “Just until he falls asleep.”

Annae sighs contently. Relaxes wholly, cocooned in Janus and kept safe. He smiles across at Roman. Stretches out a hand in a childish 'gimmie' motion. Roman clambers up onto the bed, but he's surprised when Annae pushes at him to turn. He arranges them so that Roman is on his side, being spooned by Annae as Annae is spooned by Janus.

He feels Annae sigh against his nape. Feels the touch of his lips, a barely there kiss. Roman can feel the slow rocking as Janus moves, and it's more comforting then arousing.

“Thank you,” Annae whispers in his ear.

Roman slides his hand along the arm draped over his chest. “Thank **you** ,” he whispers back, “For showing me the cicada.”

* * *

Janus is right.

It takes practice.

Even just the tank. Too often Roman loses concentration, but in those early sessions Janus is always there to set things to rights.

The timing too. There's a rhythm to it. Ask Annae for a description too often, and he would run dry before his body reached its peak. Leave too much of a space between, and that moment they are striving to build falls to ruin.

And of course it takes practice to keep Annae there on the cusp. Roman has edged his fellow light sides plenty of times, but he knows them, every spasm and twitch and moan. And Annae, sensitive as he is...it's easy to push him over unwittingly. Which means he gets physical pleasure but no release, and Roman feels the guilt keenly every time it happens.

But he watches and he learns, and there comes a day when Janus steps back. No sound, that session, just Roman's own hand and the solid, velvet warmth of Annae's cock. He cups his balls with the other, feels the way they try to draw up close and backs off again and again.

Later, cradling a sobbing Annae close, he grins wide at Janus.

Janus smiles back, but it's soft and small and strange. It takes Roman a moment to understand the shadow in his eyes.

Melancholy.


	4. Remus mild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There will be two versions of this chapter. This is the 'mild' one, but PLEASE read the kink list! The more extreme will be up tomorrow. 
> 
> Featured in this chapter are the following: ear, nose, and eye licking, bondage, deep throating, gagging, breathplay, hair pulling, marking with urine, spitting, implied past issues of boundary pushing, very deep fisting, loving humiliation, safe word use, no aftercare, biting, general raunch, and multiple orgasms. Remus has also several visions that feature body horror, blood, and violence (but there is no actual blood or violence featured.) 
> 
> Having said all of that- it still manages to be a very soft time much like the other chapters.

"Remember...." Janus's hands flutter. He fiddles with the catch of his caplet, tugs at his gloves, fusses with his bowler. As displays go, it's not very subtle. "You can veto.  **Of course** you can, that's  **fine** . Just-"

"I know," Roman tells him, for perhaps the dozenth time. Still he speaks gently, understanding that Janus has every reason to be nervous.  **Roman** is nervous.

Janus nods. Hesitates.

"You can-"

"I can veto anything," Roman finishes. Janus likes repetition and ritual; perhaps hearing his own teachings repeated back will do more to reassure him. "Anything, for any reason. But the  **how** is the important part. I-"

"Don't act disgusted," Janus jumps in, "Don't sneer, or-"

Roman captures the middle pair of hands. "Janus." He speaks a little sharply now, because he needs Janus to  **listen** . At the same time he runs his thumbs over the other side's knuckles, and he thinks it's the touch more than his tone that makes Janus suck in a breath and go still. "I'm not going to hurt him."

Janus takes another breath, more deliberate this time. "I know." Not quite a whisper, but soft and with none of the side's usual poise. The look he gives Roman is searching. "But Roman...you could. You could  **break** him."

"...I know," Roman says, and he does.

* * *

"Touch me touch me touch-"

There was a rhythm to his lessons with Janus that Roman had come to appreciate.

First, the lecture. Then Roman was to watch- to observe, until he understood the needs Janus sought to fill. Then he would be allowed to touch, but only under Janus's supervision. With each session Janus would step back a little more, and by the time he deemed Roman ready to fly solo-

Knowing how much Janus loved them, how deeply he devoted himself- who was Roman, to doubt his judgement?

It could not be that way with Remus, Janus had warned.

The moment Roman enters the room and their eyes meet, Remus  **strains** toward him. Janus has him trussed, pretty as a present, on his knees with a spreader bar forcing his legs wide. His arms are tied behind his back, elbows bent and forearms tightly tied together. The ropework is exquisite, a lacework harness in dark green and silver that forces a lovely arch to Remus's spine. 

Their eyes meet, and the world wavers. Roman feels the green  **flex** of his brother's power. The ropes become vines that wither and rot, falling free in mushy, stinking strands. The bar releases its grip and hunches away on its own, whimpering like a kicked puppy. Remus bounces to his feet, and his shadow is a writhing, tentacled thing that mantles over him, clawing and desperate and  **wanting** .

"Remus!"

There's a snap and a yellow thrum, a reverb that Roman feels in his very core, and Remus is back on his knees. Janus stalks over, threading his fingers through the white shock of Remus's hair and wrenching his head back.

"What did I tell you?" he snarls.

With Remus, it would be sink or swim. ' _ He wants you too badly. He won't be able to tolerate you standing on the sidelines.' _

Remus giggles, tongue lolling. "Sorry, boss." He tries to cut his eyes to Roman and yelps when Janus tightens his grip, bowing his head back and forcing Remus to focus on him and only him. "Fuck- sorry, boss!"

Janus holds him there, and Roman takes the opportunity to look his fill.

It's funny. The differences are superficial- Remus is covered with wiry hair where Roman prefers to stay smooth, and his muscles are just a touch more defined. He's kept more of the scars he earned, leaving him striped and pockmarked with the marks of past misadventures. Yet somehow Roman sees less of himself in his brother than any of the other. A fun house mirror, but he doesn't recognize the reflection as his own.

Remus is already hard, cock standing proud from its untrimmed nest of wild pubes. Already  **dripping** , and being desired so wantonly is doing things to Roman. Janus waits for Remus to settle and yield to his hold before he beckons to Roman.

Roman hesitates- it's nothing more than stage fright, but Janus's eyes narrow and his lips press thin. Roman grimaces an apology and hurries over.

Remus groans when Roman looms over, a deep, animal rumble of pure hunger. " **Brother** ," he whines, " **Play** with me."

Who knew being leered at could be a kink in and of itself? The way Remus is  **looking** at him-

At Janus's nod Roman replaces the other side's hand with his own, tipping Remus's head back against Roman's belly. "Yeah?" he asks, "You think you deserve that?"

"Fuck no," The answer is cheerful. Remus twists his head and tries to bite at Roman's side. Janus rolls his eyes when Roman squeaks and sucks in, just avoiding those gnashing, too-sharp teeth. He tightens up on Remus's hair and shakes him a little as punishment.

"Why you..." He's trying for a growl, low and threatening, but it's rather undermined by the laugh bubbling out around it. "Look at you. Brother?  **Please** . How could  **I** possibly be related to a stinking, rabid excuse of a goblin like  **you** ?"

Remus lights up at that. "I would have gone with gremlin," he says, "But I'll be the goblin in your dungeon anytime!"

Why was Roman so worried? It  **does** feel like play. Like their spars in the Imagination, twisting each other's creations and scoring points on an obscure scale that only the two of them understood.

Now that he finally has him back, Roman is realizing just how much he had  **missed** Remus. When he's not busy being offended, Remus is a surprising amount of fun to be around.

He draws himself up a little taller. Squares his shoulders. Does his best to project that powerful, don't-fuck-with-me attitude both Patton and Janus pull off so well. "I'll be the one to decide what you deserve." Better! The dominant role isn't one that necessarily comes naturally to Roman, but it's a point of professional pride that he can manage when he needs to. He  **is** an actor, after all. "So what should I do with you, hmmm?"

It's a rhetorical question. The answer pushes into him, a spike of green, a flash of possibilities. A tableau in red.

Remus with his back flayed, left with more wound than skin, the blood dripping slick down his flanks. Remus missing an eye, the hole lush and wet and ready. Remus torn wide, ribs cracked and spread, a hand caressing the curves of the still beating heart-

Through the ringing in his ears Roman distantly hears a snap. The thrum blankets over everything, submerging the fantasies beneath a flood of serene yellow.

Roman's gasp catches in his chest. He starts to stagger back-

Janus's hand lands heavy on his shoulder. His fingers dig in under Roman's collarbone, sparking a jolt of pain that radiates all the way down to his elbow. With another he forces Roman to keep his hold on Remus's hair, twining their fingers together and squeezing hard enough to rouse a duller ache. He uses that grip to force Remus's head down, despite the way he bucks and fights to look up at them.

"Apologies," he mumbles, and his voice is strained and his face is very close to Roman's own. "That got away from me."

Remus is giggling again. Shrill and frantic, until it dissolves into a chant of grotesqueries. "Yes! Please," he begs, "Open me up, touch me, take me apart-  **play** with me!"

"Remus? Veto. No cutting, not today." Janus speaks calmly, but he's watching Roman very carefully. Head just slightly cocked, waiting for a response. Modeling, Roman realizes. He forces several deep breaths, until he feels his pounding heart start to slow, and dips his chin in a tiny nod.

"Veto," he echoes, and he's proud when it comes out steady.

Some of the tension in Janus's spine eases. He nods back; job well done. Roman swallows hard against his dry mouth and finds a smile when Janus pats his shoulder in apology for his harshness.

Remus only grumbles. A little miffed, maybe, but accepting. When Janus allows it he tips his head far back so he can butt his skull against Roman. " **Whatever** , Vanillapeen, just  **touch** me." He butts him again, reminding Roman of some giant, perpetually horny feline. "Don't get me wrong- Snake Tails can be a sadist scaly shit when I need him to be, but he's not  **you** ."

It's the sweetest thing Remus has ever said to him. Odd how Roman had never once considered that Remus might have missed him too.

Roman pulls his brother's head back even further, enjoying the way Remus's face goes slack at the pressure. He leans down and Remus strains up, panting eagerly as the distance between them closes. Roman can smell the hot, sulfur reek of him, a mix of sweat and something acidic but earthy, like swamp mud baked dry by the sun.

"Why..." Roman whispers, "....would I ever want to touch dumpster garbage like you?"

The keening whimper that bursts out of Remus has Roman making a liar out of himself seconds later. The kiss is rough, a clash of teeth that bruises their lips. Roman steadies Remus with a hand on his cheek and licks his way into his brother's mouth, eyes fluttering shut when Remus sucks on his tongue.

This close, their edges overlap. Roman can feel the vibration of his brother's thoughts, a heady, unceasing hum. Remus cranes to press closer, grunting low in his chest as he suckles sloppy and wet and rough. It feels like he wants to devour Roman, and Roman no sooner has the thought then he feels the muscles in Remus's jaw start to bunch.

Snap. The wash of yellow stops Remus just as his teeth start to press in. "Careful," Janus mutters.

Right. Roman pulls back, grinning mean at the way Remus tries to follow. The top of his mouth burns from the rub of his brother's mustache and his chin is slick with spit; Roman does not wipe it clean.

"Well, I  **did** say you were rabid."

Remus's pupils are blown wide. He shimmies, hips working in tiny thrusts that seem only to frustrate him.

From a  **kiss** .

"More," Remus hisses, "Bite off my lips, tear off my mustache and make me eat it." He shakes his head suddenly, fretfully, despite the way it yanks at his hair. When he looks back up to Roman his face is pleading. "Lick my eye."

-the sheer strangeness of it gives Roman pause. He glances at Janus, who merely lifts a brow.

' _ Veto _ ?' he mouths, and Roman shakes his head.

It's not disturbing. Just- weird, in a uniquely Remus's way.

And this, this was meant to be a time to indulge him, as best as possible. Things had gotten vastly better since his acceptance, but all too often Remus's suggestions were still met with a kneejerk 'no'- often, to his shame, from Roman himself.

So it's weird. So what? Roman can give his brother this much, at least.

(He suspects that Janus gives far, far more. ' _ No cutting, not today _ ,' he had said, and Roman had not missed the implication there. Not that any of it would have  **damaged** Remus. He was cut from a different cloth from the rest, even Roman, too thoroughly aware of his own unreality to let mundanities like disembowelment stand in the way of a good time. Still, knowing Janus as he does, Roman wagers it must have cost him to take up the knife. Does he ever veto, he wonders? Is there any limit, to what he would do, what he would give, to see another side satisfied?)

It's easier to slide to his knees. Remus holds his eye open wide and he's trembling, mumbling a steady stream of almost inaudible fifth. Roman cradles his face with both hands and pushes back his eyelid with his thumb.

It's tentative, just the very tip of his tongue. He's surprised to find there's no real taste, save perhaps for the faintest hint of salt. It's more a sensation, firm but a little yielding, and entirely worth it for the way Remus shivers and giggles.

"What if you licked out my ear?" he asks, eager as a puppy presented with a treat. Roman chuckles a little. What if he did?

Remus obligingly tilts his head. Roman nips and sucks at the lobe, then traces his tongue up the shell and nibbles on the slightly pointed tip. " **Bite** ," Remus moans, and Roman does- not hard enough to draw blood, not nearly, but more than hard enough to make Remus squeal.

And then he plunges in. Deep, deep as he can, until the base of his tongue aches. He tries to lick and lash as best he can, but it's a tight space. There is a taste this time, a bitterness that coats his mouth in an oily film when he pulls his tongue back to snatch a breath. It makes his stomach lurch a little, but Remus is making the most delicious noises, hips juddering while he begs Roman to lick his eardrum.

It takes only a second of focus for Roman to make his tongue long and narrow. He sets about his work with an enthusiasm that surprises him, but the grunts and groans have his own cock so hard it takes real restraint not to rub himself off against Remus's hip.

When he finally pulls back he doesn't make Remus ask, just reshapes himself again and licks his way with broad, wet strokes across his brother's face. Remus tips his head back in offering, and Roman pushes himself up higher for a better angle. He bites and sucks at the bridge of his nose, working his way slowly down to the tip. He lingers there, pulling more squeals and whines when he  **chews** .

One last, sucking kiss, and he traces the tip of his tongue around a nostril. There's the slightest hesitation, a split second ' _ ew _ ' in the back of his brain, and then Roman is pushing in.

It's gross. There's no way around it. It's hairy and slimy and Remus isn't the only one groaning. There's something about the sheer, small depravity of it that sets Roman's blood aflame. He cleans out one side and goes straight for the other, and by time they pull apart they're both heaving for air.

"Nasty nasty," Remus croons, and he sounds positively delighted by it. "Eat it, eat  **me** . Lick my brain, spit on me-"

Roman presses Remus's cheeks to purse his lips and spits into his mouth. He works his own jaw and lets himself drool, a long, silver strand that Remus drinks with babbling gratitude.

The small sound of Janus shifting his weight reminds Roman abruptly that they aren't alone. He's wary when he looks over, flinching inwardly- it's one thing to go along with things for Remus's sake. Another to  **enjoy** them, and he can't possibly pretend he didn't, not after that display.

Janus smirks and waggles his brows, but his eyes are soft and fond.

"You can eyefuck Janass later," Remus complains, "Or fuck him fuck him, you do you." He pushes in against Roman hard enough to make him flail to keep his balance. Remus, Roman is discovering, will  **not** be ignored.

He attaches himself to Roman's throat, mouthing wet just under his jaw. There is a risk- Remus, Janus had told him, was a biter- but Roman can feel the press of power keeping his brother's more bloodthirsty urges at bay. His neck had always been a weak point, and Remus, bastard rat that he is, takes full advantage, marking him with a line of bruises that Roman hopes will bloom lurid.

When Remus reaches the collar of his tunic he snarls, taking it between his teeth and wrenching back and forth like a dog playing tug. He lets go just as abruptly. "Too many clothes," he complains, "Want to see you, feel you, crawl inside your skin,  **be** you-"

Another flex of green, and Roman barely has time to register his own nudity before Janus restores his clothes.

"Remus." It's a hiss, drawn out with sibilant fury. Janus storms over and pushes between them, taking Remus by the hair again and pulling him to the side, until it's only that grip that keeps him from falling fully over. "You-"

Roman lurches to his feet, more than a little mystified by the other side's ire. "Janus, it's fine." He reaches out to lay a hand on Janus's arm, frowning at the tension there, "It's no big deal, I-"

" **No** ." The intensity of it makes Roman snap his mouth shut. "We do not change others without their consent. Not their clothes, not their bodies.  **Ever** ."

Realization makes Roman stiffen. They all  **can** change each other, some more easily, some to a greater or lesser extent. But Roman and Remus- they can do it effortlessly, and Remus-

And there's an implication here that Roman doesn’t much like. He knows Remus would never  **mean** to cross a boundary. He also knows his brother's nature, and how he struggles to control it.  _ 'No, he doesn't join the others,"  _ Janus had said in reference to the dark sides occasional group sessions, and Roman understands now why. Because only Janus had the power to control him, but he needed Remus to  **try** . To show restraint in this one way, because unlike Roman, Janus had no back-up when they were together.

And looking at Janus- Roman can see the cost of it, that push and pull. He realizes that Janus has been repressing much more than Roman knew, that it must be nearly constant- there's sweat on his brow and the corners of his eyes are pinched small. The snake eye glows faintly, pulsing slow as Janus works to keep things  **contained** .

He feels like a fool, because it isn't even just about keeping himself and Roman safe, is it? It's Thomas too, maintaining a barrier between them when Remus was in no state to do it himself.

"Sorry, boss." Remus doesn't fight this time. Just goes limp, docile and subdued, and the regret in his tone is real. "Didn't mean to be a greedy, greasy guts. It's just...it's  **Roman** ."

Janus sighs. He settles Remus back upright, running his hand gently through his tousled, sweat soaked hair. "I know," he says, "Which is why you need to take good care of him, yes?"

Remus nods violently. "Cross my heart, hope to fry, stick some needles in my taint."

"That doesn't even rhyme," Roman says balefully.

Janus shakes his head at them both and gives Roman a tight-lipped smile.

"I think," he says, "It's time to move this along."

* * *

Janus asks Remus what he wants, and from the litany has Roman pick what he's willing to do.

If Remus had been a present before he's a buffet now. On his back in a sling, legs kept up and apart by leather stirrups, head tipped back at the perfect height and angle. He's tied with his arms folded across his chest, but Roman knows now that it's more reminder than restraint.

Janus snaps a ring gag into existence and hands if off to Roman. "Better safe than sorry in this case," he says, "Considering I'll rather have my hands full with other things."

"Deep deep deep," Remus chants, "Make me take it, choke me on it." He whines, jerking his head back again and again. "What if I passed out- what if I frothed and gagged and-"

Roman can see it, so clearly. Remus limp, his lips faintly blue and his cheeks blotchy with broken blood vessels. He glances across Remus's body at Janus, sees him raise his hand to snap-

Roman pushes first. Carefully, not sure if what he plans will work but determined to try. He can't repress Remus's thoughts, can't shut them down like Janus does.

But he  **can** change them. Where their edges mingle the red touches green, and instead of Remus unconscious it's Remus messy and sated, gurgling on a spill of white.

It only works because Remus allows it. Roman can feel his brother giving way, welcoming him in. Roman thanks him by strapping the gag into place as Remus opens eagerly for it, tugging hard at the straps and sticking two fingers in to pet Remus's tongue.

When he looks at Janus again the other side's eyes are wide. His hand is still raised (the glove thin latex again and much longer, extending almost to his shoulder.) He lowers it slowly and gives Roman a nod.

Roman can't help his grin.

He's nude now- of his own volition- and his cock is already aching as he slides the tip through the hole of the gag. Remus laves at his slit as Roman teases him with swallow thrusts. In truth, he's not sure how far he'll be able to take things, but he knows he can veto if he needs to and neither Janus nor Remus will think less of him for it.

Across the way Janus is busy. He opens Remus quickly, efficiently- Roman has no doubt Remus is shifting himself to help the process along. It's only a moment's work before Janus has his hand inside Remus up to the wrist.

' _ Punch fuck me _ ,' Remus had demanded, and Janus  **does** .

He doesn't start slow, doesn't work up to it. Just pulls back and pushes back in with his full weight, again and again, deeper each time. Until he's up to his elbow, and Roman wishes he could see it, the rim of Remus's hole stretched so wide. The sounds are almost enough, meaty and wet, a sucking squelch that should be disgusting but isn't, isn't at all. The sling rocks just slightly, the chains creaking, so that each thrust pushes Roman's length further into Remus's mouth.

Roman is so enthralled in watching the muscles in Janus's shoulder work that he doesn't realize he's slowed to hitching little judders until Remus makes a garbled, pleading nose. He looks down to find his brother batting his eyelashes at him, and it makes him snort even as he rolls his hips through a heavy, punishing thrust.

There's a wet click in Remus's throat. Roman does it again, and the way Remus chokes makes his eyes cross. He settles a hand on his brother's throat to feel it bulge, to feel Remus's hitching attempting to swallow. Janus pulls out, dripping thick, sticky globs of lube as he twines the fingers of two hands together into a cone and presses back in. Roman fancies he can see a bulge there too, in the pudge of Remus's hairy belly.

Remus's cock is flushed dark, his fat balls drawn up tight. They work him hard between them, and that cock twitches and dribbles and finally blurts out cum in long, slow spurts.

"Keep going," Janus says, and he had informed Roman about this too, just how long it took to ensure Remus was truly satisfied. Certainly Remus doesn't soften in the least, and he cums again only moments later, this time with a high, breathless keen.

-and the room flickers around them, a threat of unreality that makes Roman's eyes burn. He can feel Remus losing himself, the eddies and sudden twists as his thoughts unspool. The green coils around him, nudges at him, asking what if what if what if-

Roman tries not to blanch at the visions flashing behind his eyes. It's a deluge this time, most of it too fast to make sense of, but what he  **does** see-

He nudges back, as best he can. Adjusts this, shifts that, and he can feel Janus pressing down the rest. His admiration for the other side only grows. Janus doesn't miss a beat- he's back to one arm, in almost up to his damn shoulder- but he's showing his fangs in a tight, stressed little snarl.

How had he ever managed this alone? There must have been times when Janus  **couldn't** maintain control, when Remus steamrolled over him. It would be hard enough to handle if Roman could spare the effort his full concentration, but having his brother gagging on his cock isn't helping his focus any.

Roman pulls out completely to watch the drool and throat slime spill down Remus's cheeks, smirking down while his brother hacks and coughs and heaves for air.

"Freak," he taunts with great relish. "Just a repellent, putrid little **maggot**."

He sees it then, and his belly plummets.

"-veto." It comes out shaky, a whisper. Roman clears his throat and tries again. "Veto!"

He's pulling at the ropes holding Remus down before Janus has a chance to snap them away, too flustered to think to do it himself. When they vanish he pulls Remus out of the sling, steadying him on his feet and prodding at him. Patting his back, rubbing at his shoulder, all of it more harshly than he means to.

"What is it?" Janus has snapped himself clean and back into his normal gloves. He looks half-panicked, glancing between Roman and Remus with a deep, worried frown. "What happened?"

Roman just shakes his head. "I'm sorry," he tells Remus, "Sorry, I'm- I'm so damn sorry."

He summons a bench and makes Remus sit. Follows it by snapping a bottle into existence, only to finally remember the gag. Once that's done away with he nearly forces the water down Remus's throat. Janus grabs his wrist before he succeeds in drowning his sputtering brother.

"What  **happened** ?" he demands, and his fists are clenched and he looks ten seconds away from biting out of sheer frustration.

"He was  **crying** ." Roman thumbs away the tears under Remus's eyes. "I should have been watching more closely, paid more attention. He-"

Remus manages to eel out of his grip-

And laughs. Until he's cackling, hoarse and loud and horribly obnoxious. It breaks into snickers that makes him bend over double, clutching his sticky belly.

"I was crying!" he wheezes, slapping at his bare thigh. "Oh. Oh, brother mine." He peeks up at Roman and that sets him off again. Remus laughs until he starts to cough, guttural and ugly. "Crying," he rasps when he can, "Fuck. You boys really do play soft serve on the other side, don't you?"

Janus huffs through his nose and swats at Remus. It makes Roman squawk a protest, ready to defend his brother even against Janus, and the other side blinks at him in mild exasperation.

"Remus is  **fine** ," he assures, "The tearing up is involuntary. A reflex, nothing more. Trust me-" He pauses, mouth twisting into a wry smirk at his own words, "- he was  **very** much enjoying himself."

Remus snorts and bumps against Roman with his shoulder, hard enough to almost send them both toppling. "Fucking too right I was! I didn't think you'd ever have the balls to play the Cain to my Abel, but you can suffocate me on your dick anytime."

He's grinning with far too many teeth, and the knot in Roman's chest eases so abruptly it leaves him feeling a little faint. Janus is quick to guide him over to sit beside Remus, and now Roman is the one being plied with water. Remus plasters himself against his side, and Janus tuts when his hand drifts south.

"Let him breathe," he says.

Remus makes a disgruntled sound and touches himself instead, pinching and tugging at his foreskin like it's a fidget toy. "Crying," he mumbles to himself and laughs like a hyena directly into Roman's ear. Roman flinches from it, but somehow it helps him steady himself.

Remus is fine. Remus is  **Remus** .

"Better?"

Roman nods and hands the bottle back to Janus, who chugs the rest before placing it neatly to the side.

"We don't-" Roman is more sheepish now than anything. He ducks his head to hide the heat flooding his cheeks. "We don't usually go that rough."

"I bet you all use baby shampoo too." Remus shakes his head when Roman looks at him blankly. "No more tears? Keep up, dingus face."

Roman snorts, but it's not quite enough to quell his shame at the overreaction. "I  **am** sorry," he tells them both, "I ruined the scene."

Janus waves that away with a flick of his wrist. Remus just rolls his eyes with such gusto they get temporarily stuck with only the whites showing.

"You can make it up to me," he says, and launches into a detailed list of possibilities. "You can wash my socks. You can  **eat** my socks. Sort my carcass collection. I usually let the beetles strip 'em, but you can-"

"You didn't." Janus ignores Remus with the ease of long practice, pitching his voice just a little louder to be heard. "You were concerned for Remus, and that's admirable. But I do think we should perhaps call it a day."

Remus goes abruptly quiet at that. Roman looks over, expecting to find him pouting at Roman or glaring at Janus. But Remus is studying him quite seriously, and the only thing on his face is concern.

"I'm good," Roman decides, "It's-" He pauses, checks in with himself to be sure of it. Nods decisively. "Yeah. I'm good."

"Very well," Janus says after a moment of consideration, "But perhaps it will ease your mind to remember that Remus has a safe signal."

And now Roman feels even more the idiot. It was something they'd gone over during the lecture portion of the lesson, just like they did for every side. Even with the way he had been tied, Remus would have been able to snap. If he couldn't manage that, he only needed to open and close his hand, and of course Janus would have been watching for it, because Janus was  **always** watching.

Roman slides off the bench to his feet and cuffs Remus lightly upside the head. "Alright, mongrel. I'm ready to ruin a bitch."

This time when Remus falls apart laughing Roman joins in.

* * *

Back in the sling, bound and spread wide, Remus has lost none of his arousal.

Roman is a rather different story. He makes to stroke himself back to hardness and pauses, fingers wrapped around his flaccid length.

There's an opportunity here. Why waste it?

Janus is already back on task, alternating fists as he quite literally punches yet another climax out of Remus. Roman shuffles forward, and if he's a little queasy, a little unsure if he really means to do this-

And he knows that part of the reasons he wants to, is to prove something- to Janus and Remus, certainly, but also to himself. 

It's probably not the healthiest line of thoughts, but he's done odder things for worse reasons.

"Should I clean you up, filth?" he asks, and wiggles his cock to make his intention clear.

It's an unholy noise that boils out of Remus, and his eyes are bright with feverish glee. It makes it so much easier for Roman to commit- or try. He has to close his eyes and really focus inward to get a stream going, and even then it's start and stop.

The first weak, sputtering spurt splashes across Remus's forehead. "Absolutely sickening," Roman growls as he adjusts, "Just a chamber pot- I should keep you under my bed and pull you out to  **use** you. It's the only thing you're good for."

Why oh why is this so damn hot? Roman soaks his brother's hair, until his already wavering stream peters out as his cock hardens ridiculously quickly, thickening between his fingers and curving up toward his belly.

He takes himself in hand and presses in through the gag, thrusting in hard and  **grinding** there. Janus pulls out to add a second hand against, and when he pushes back in Remus's belly jumps and he arches up as much as he's able, cock dribbling a single blurt of cum.

With his climax a shockwave ripples out. This time Roman can't help his wince at the visions that assault him. It's Janus who smothers it, and for the first time Roman sees him falter. He shivers, leaning his head against Remus's thigh and huffing open mouthed as he tries to catch his breath. There's a worrisome paleness around his lips, and little wonder!

Roman is ecstatic to be there. To be able to share this with his brother, after so many years apart. But it's a simple fact that Remus is  **exhausting** . Roman can feel a growing sluggishness weighing him down, and his hips are actually starting to ache.

And for Janus- it wasn't Remus alone. It was Virgil and Sen and Annae and Remus and Roman too, because there was responsibility and weight to teaching.

\- they really do need to move things along.

Janus rouses himself with another wracking shiver. He nuzzles into Remus's thigh, then drops his jaw and sinks those sharp little needle fangs in deep. Remus howls around Roman's cock and cums again, and Roman has quite lost track by this point. Remus's entire belly is glazed, his pubes matted down in thick clumps.

Roman reaches up to grasp the chains of the sling and  **hammers** in. "Take it," he grits, "You festering, diseased sore of a side-" What the hell is he even  **saying** ? He wants to laugh at himself, but more importantly he wants Remus to-

"Choke on it, scum!"

Remus is gagging and belching and the tears are  **pouring** from his eyes and Roman doesn't let up, not one bit. He puts his hand on his brother's throat and this time tightens down, thumb rubbing harsh circles over his Adam's apple. He can feel Remus trying to swallow, and the convulsions around his cock are bliss. Remus's nose is streaming and his eyes are splotched red where blood vessels have burst.

Roman watches his hands and grins when Remus manages to give him a thumbs up.

One last thrust and Roman seats himself deep. It feels like every part of him is clenched tight as he spends himself. He mutters through it, and he might be cursing, or praising Remus, or calling him all manner of names- it's all just noise and he can't hear himself anyway over the ringing in his ears.

Remus cums with him, with urine dripping from his hair and Janus's arm lodged up his ass, and he's wretched and foul and nasty and-

Gorgeous.

Roman rides out the last spasms of his orgasm and pulls out gently. He's unspeakably relieved to see that Remus is finally starting to go soft. He huffs out a giddy giggle of his own and looks to Janus, who is starting the slow process of extracting himself. Despite the weariness on his face Janus winks and gives Roman the nod he has come to crave.

Job well done indeed.

* * *

The instant Janus pulls completely free Remus unbinds himself, catapulting to his feet with a whoop. Roman is still trying to catch his breath when his brother struts over and pinches his cheek.

"Not bad for a first time, Piss Dick!"

Remus's face is smeared with all manner of things; it's all Roman can do not to lean away. Remus grins wolfish and swipes his fingers through the mess on his own cheek. Long experience with his brother has Roman dodging before his conscious mind fully registers the danger.

He doesn't quite make it.

"Oh, for-" Roman makes a complicated sound that is mostly vowels before he remembers he can snap himself clean. He takes care of his groin while he's at it, sighing in relief when the mess caked around his cock vanishes. "You're so  **gross** ."

This time it isn't a compliment. Remus preens anyway.

"Remus, stop tormenting your brother."

Janus has claimed the bench and sits slumped, hands dangling between his knees. He speaks mildly, but there's an edge to it that makes Remus scowl and kick at the floor.

He huffs, summoning his morning star and swinging it up onto his shoulder.

"Spoilsnake." Remus blows a far too juicy raspberry Janus's way. "Welp. I'm off to bash in some heads." He waggles his crusty brows at Roman. "Wanna join?"

He conjures up another morning star, this one ostentatious in white and glittering gold, and waves it temptingly.

"How are you still moving?" Roman asks plaintively.

Remus rolls his eyes, no less dramatically than last time, and bounces in place. “Getting my guts reamed out always starts my day off right. I feel eight pounds lighter at least.” 

He tosses a salute Janus’s way, skips over to plant a smacking kiss on Roman’s forehead, and sinks out. 

Roman is left staring at the empty spot where his brother used to be. There's an unfamiliar feeling in his chest, something that isn't quite sorrow. He feels hollow, mostly, and unsure of what he's meant to do next.

"I did warn you," Janus says quietly.

He looks smaller, sitting like that.

"I know," Roman admits, and he's trying so, so hard to be okay with it.

Remus's version of aftercare wasn't washclothes and cuddles. After a good few hours of having his worst thoughts repressed he needed to let them run rampant, needed to hack and slash and bathe in the blood of his enemies. So it was off to the Imagination for him, leaving Roman to stand lonely.

Incomplete, he decides. He feels incomplete.

"Come along." Janus pushes himself up with a groan. He wavers once he's on his feet, and for a second or two Roman is positive he's going to pitch right over. He's no sooner taken a step forward than Janus steadies himself and offers a hand. "Let's get you taken care of."

Roman takes it on reflex. They sink out of the liminal space of the playroom and land in Roman's bathroom.

"I know," Janus says when Roman tries to protest he's already clean, "But you don't feel like you are, do you?"

That gives Roman pause because no- no, he doesn't, not really. He realizes he's been scratching idly at the smooth skin above his cock, trying to soothe the phantom stickiness there.

Janus fills the tub brimful with a wave of his hand. He closes his eyes just from that, gloved fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose. When he opens them again Roman can see the pain there- he must have one hell of a headache. The hand still holding Roman's tugs him forward.

By now Roman is well used to following Janus's lead. It surprises them both when he balks.

"You first."

Janus blinks at him, the confusion fading quickly to irritation. "Roman-"

Roman pulls his hand free and crosses his arms over his chest. "You first," he says again, then shakes his head, "Better yet, let's just get in together."

Janus folds his own arms- all six of them.

Roman sighs. Lets himself droop a little, letting one arm fall to his side to grip it with the other, a sad little self-hug. "I think it would help me feel better." He gives his head a subtle shake, bringing his bangs forward so he can peek up at Janus through them. "It's kind of getting to me, you know? Remus running off like that."

He almost-  **almost** \- feels guilty when Janus grumbles, cutting his eyes between Roman and the water.

"I know what you're doing," he says, but they both also know full well that it's working.

Roman waves his own hand, calling up mounds of fluffy white bubbles. "I'll turn my back," he promises, and only smiles when Janus startles.

They've never spoken of it, the way Janus wears his clothes like armor. Even this oblique reference makes him draw in on himself and fiddle with his sleeves. Roman waits for him to look at him again before reaching slowly for the bowler, letting his hand hover without touching until Janus dips his head in offering.

He turns around as promised and sets the hat carefully off to the side, making sure it's well away from any potential splash zone. Behind him there's a snap and the soft ripple of water as Janus steps into the tub. It would be easy for Roman to spin around, to take advantage and satisfy his curiosity, and it warms him through that Janus has faith that he won't. 

There's a long, low sigh as Janus sinks into the heat. He doesn't speak, just clicks his tongue against his teeth to signal when it's safe. 

Thirty seconds, and already the other side looks blissed out. His arms rest on the sides of the porcelain and his head is tipped slightly back, eyes closed, luxuriating in the steam. 

They snap open and he straightens abruptly when Roman kneels beside the tub instead of climbing in himself. "You said-"

"Let me wash your hair first." He's already brandishing a cup of warm, bubble-free water. "It's what I would have done for Remus."

Janus glares at him even as he dips his chin to his chest and shuts his eyes. "I invented this game," he mutters as Roman wets down his already sweat-soaked hair. "I know you're aren’t so dim that you think I wouldn't see through your paltry attempts."

"Perish the thought." Roman selects a shampoo bottle at random and pours a generous amount into his hand. It's lightly floral with a citrus undertone- not what he would have chosen, perhaps, but pleasant enough. "Top drop can be quite nasty, you know. I'm simply practicing self care."

Janus's retort is lost in a breathy moan when Roman starts to work his fingers deep into his hair. He presses back into the touch, eyes fluttering shut again. Some of the suds drip down to slide across the scales that mark his bare shoulders. The left is covered completely, the right marked by random patches. They're more varied than the ones on his face, the stippling of umber and gold more pronounced- even more so on his arms, and Roman is slightly disappointed when he finds the other side is still wearing his gloves.

The scales are really quite beautiful. Roman can't imagine why he hides them. But then- Janus doesn't actually seem at all uncomfortable having them exposed. Roman keeps massaging his scalp far longer than he needs to and wonder of wonders, Janus lets him, going almost boneless and simply letting Roman do as he will. The steam has brought a high flush of color to his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose, and Roman has to sternly tell his thoroughly exhausted dick to settle.

When he finally deems it time to rinse the ever-present furrow between Janus's brows is gone entirely and his face is still and serene. Roman pours out one last cupful and settles a hand on his shoulder, running his thumb softly across the scales as he waits for the other side to rouse himself.

It's almost a full minute before Janus blinks open his eyes to blearily squint at Roman. He motions to the other side of the tub with a careless, heavy flop of his wrist, and even that little gesture seems to speak to the depths of his weariness.

"Actually," Roman says, "I am pretty tired." He doesn't need to feign a yawn- he's  **beyond** tired. His very bones seem made of stone. After a few seconds Janus copies him, working his jaw to resettle it when the snake side briefly dislocates. "Let's just go to bed, yeah?"

He turns, but only briefly, vanishing the water and snapping Janus into fluffy pajamas without looking at him. He gets the other side up and into the other room, and nearly makes it to the bed before Janus starts to come out of his haze. He stiffens then, but Roman just whips back his silk sheets and bullies him down onto the mattress. 

"I'm only allowing this-" Janus has to pause to allow for another jaw popping yawn, "Because you shouldn't be alone tonight."

"You're the very picture of subterfuge," Roman assures him.

He takes a moment to summon his own pajamas before sliding in next to Janus and pulling him in against him. Janus hisses at him for the manhandling, yawns again, and lets his head drop heavily onto Roman's shoulder. He chuckles softly at Roman's little oof.

"Punishment." He's hissing his s's badly. "For-" another yawn "-thinking you could outmaneuver the chess master."

Roman reaches up to toy with his hair again, and that's all it takes. Janus gives a pleased little hum and goes limp. Asleep, or on the cusp of it.

"Yeah." Roman closes his own eyes and nuzzles in a little closer. "You sure showed me."

* * *

Thus far, Roman has been learning Janus's rules. When and where and how to touch. What to avoid.

For the first time he insists on a rule of his own.

No more playing with Remus alone.

Janus grumbles, but Roman is fairly sure it's mostly for show. He thinks there might be relief there, in the way Janus throws up his hands and agrees.

Even with the two of them, sessions with Remus are always draining. They’re also exhilarating. Roman learns all manner of new things about himself. He laughs more than he expects, experiments more than he would have ever imagined.

Still, there are some things he cannot abide. He vetoes when he needs to. Other times he steps back and lets Janus handle the physical side while he focuses on controlling his brother’s raw power. It means he sees things he'd really rather not, but that’s a small price to pay to ease a little of the burden on Janus's shoulders.

"I think we can consider you graduated," Janus tells him after one session, when they're both still slimy and aching. "Gold star, well done and all that."

He's being a sarcastic little shit, because he just can't help himself, but Roman puffs out his chest and lets himself savor the moment. He's proud. He  **deserves** to feel proud. It was a quest of a different sort than slaying a dragon witch or brainstorming a video, but he feels far more fulfilled by it.

....so why does he also feel so hollow?

It's not until later, with Janus draped across him and snoring softly in his ear, that Roman identifies that ache for what it is. 

What prince ever left a quest incomplete?

  
  



	5. Remus hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the more hardcore version of this chapter. PLEASE READ THE KINK LIST!!
> 
> This maintains the list from the mild version: ear, nose, and eye licking, bondage, deep throating, hair pulling gagging, breathplay, marking with urine, spitting, implied past issues of boundary pushing, very deep fisting, loving humiliation, safe word use, no aftercare, biting, general raunch, and multiple orgasms. Remus has also several visions that feature body horror, blood, and violence (but there is no actual blood or violence featured.)
> 
> New Additions: graphic visions of violence, graphic vision of a corpse, vision of prolapsing (no actual prolapsing), urine drinking, fisting with three fists, deep throating and choking to the point of vomiting 
> 
> And yet- still soft!

"Remember...." Janus's hands flutter. He fiddles with the catch of his caplet, tugs at his gloves, fusses with his bowler. As displays go, it's not very subtle. "You can veto. **Of course** you can, that's **fine**. Just-"

"I know," Roman tells him, for perhaps the dozenth time. Still he speaks gently, understanding that Janus has every reason to be nervous. **Roman** is nervous. 

Janus nods. Hesitates. 

"You can-" 

"I can veto anything," Roman finishes. Janus likes repetition and ritual; perhaps hearing his own teachings repeated back will do more to reassure him. "Anything, for any reason. But the **how** is the important part. I-" 

"Don't act disgusted," Janus jumps in, "Don't sneer, or-" 

Roman captures the middle pair of hands. "Janus." He speaks a little sharply now, because he needs Janus to **listen**. At the same time he runs his thumbs over the other side's knuckles, and he thinks it's the touch more than his tone that makes Janus suck in a breath and go still. "I'm not going to hurt him." 

Janus takes another breath, more deliberate this time. "I know." Not quite a whisper, but soft and with none of the side's usual poise. The look he gives Roman is searching. "But Roman...you could. You could **break** him." 

"...I know," Roman says, and he does. 

* * *

"Touch me touch me touch-" 

There was a rhythm to his lessons with Janus that Roman had come to appreciate. 

First, the lecture. Then Roman was to watch- to observe, until he understood the needs Janus sought to fill. Then he would be allowed to touch, but only under Janus's supervision. With each session Janus would step back a little more, and by the time he deemed Roman ready to fly solo- 

Knowing how much Janus loved them, how deeply he devoted himself- who was Roman, to doubt his judgement? 

It could not be that way with Remus, Janus had warned.

The moment Roman enters the room and their eyes meet, Remus **strains** toward him. Janus has him trussed, pretty as a present, on his knees with a spreader bar forcing his legs wide. His arms are tied behind his back, elbows bent and forearms tightly tied together. The ropework is exquisite, a lacework harness in dark green and silver that forces a lovely arch to Remus's spine.

Their eyes meet, and the world wavers. Roman feels the green **flex** of his brother's power. The ropes become vines that wither and rot, falling free in mushy, stinking strands. The bar releases its grip and hunches away on its own, whimpering like a kicked puppy. Remus bounces to his feet, and his shadow is a writhing, tentacled thing that mantles over him, clawing and desperate and **wanting**.

"Remus!"

There's a snap and a yellow thrum, a reverb that Roman feels in his very core, and Remus is back on his knees. Janus stalks over, threading his fingers through the white shock of Remus's hair and wrenching his head back. 

"What did I tell you?" he snarls. 

With Remus, it would be sink or swim. ' _He wants you too badly. He won't be able to tolerate you standing on the sidelines.'  
_

Remus giggles, tongue lolling. "Sorry, boss." He tries to cut his eyes to Roman and yelps when Janus tightens his grip, bowing his head back and forcing Remus to focus on him and only him. "Fuck- sorry, boss!" 

Janus holds him there, and Roman takes the opportunity to look his fill. 

It's funny. The differences are superficial- Remus is covered with wiry hair where Roman prefers to stay smooth, and his muscles are just a touch more defined. He's kept more of the scars he earned, leaving him striped and pockmarked with the marks of past misadventures. Yet somehow Roman sees less of himself in his brother than any of the other. A fun house mirror, but he doesn't recognize the reflection as his own.

Remus is already hard, cock standing proud from its untrimmed nest of wild pubes. Already **dripping** , and being desired so wantonly is doing things to Roman. Janus waits for Remus to settle and yield to his hold before he beckons to Roman.

Roman hesitates- it's nothing more than stage fright, but Janus's eyes narrow and his lips press thin. Roman grimaces an apology and hurries over. 

Remus groans when Roman looms over, a deep, animal rumble of pure hunger. " **Brother** ," he whines, " **Play** with me." 

Who knew being leered at could be a kink in and of itself? The way Remus is **looking** at him- 

At Janus's nod Roman replaces the other side's hand with his own, tipping Remus's head back against Roman's belly. "Yeah?" he asks, "You think you deserve that?"

"Fuck no," The answer is cheerful. Remus twists his head and tries to bite at Roman's side. Janus rolls his eyes when Roman squeaks and sucks in, just avoiding those gnashing, too-sharp teeth. He tightens up on Remus's hair and shakes him a little as punishment. 

"Why you..." He's trying for a growl, low and threatening, but it's rather undermined by the laugh bubbling out around it. "Look at you. Brother? **Please**. How could **I** possibly be related to a stinking, rabid excuse of a goblin like **you**?" 

Remus lights up at that. "I would have gone with gremlin," he says, "But I'll be the goblin in your dungeon anytime!" 

Why was Roman so worried? It **does** feel like play. Like their spars in the Imagination, twisting each other's creations and scoring points on an obscure scale that only the two of them understood. 

Now that he finally has him back, Roman is realizing just how much he had **missed** Remus. When he's not busy being offended, Remus is a surprising amount of fun to be around. 

He draws himself up a little taller. Squares his shoulders. Does his best to project that powerful, don't-fuck-with-me attitude both Patton and Janus pull off so well. "I'll be the one to decide what you deserve." Better! The dominant role isn't one that necessarily comes naturally to Roman, but it's a point of professional pride that he can manage when he needs to. He **is** an actor, after all. "So what should I do with you, hmmm?"

It's a rhetorical question. The answer pushes into him, a spike of green, a flash of possibilities. A tableau in red.

Remus with his back flayed, left with more wound than skin, the blood dripping slick down his flanks. Remus missing an eye, the hole lush and wet and ready. Remus torn wide, ribs cracked and spread, a hand caressing the curves of the still beating heart- 

Through the ringing in his ears Roman distantly hears a snap. The thrum blankets over everything, submerging the fantasies beneath a flood of serene yellow. 

Roman's gasp catches in his chest. He starts to stagger back-

Janus's hand lands heavy on his shoulder. His fingers dig in under Roman's collarbone, sparking a jolt of pain that radiates all the way down to his elbow. With another he forces Roman to keep his hold on Remus's hair, twining their fingers together and squeezing hard enough to rouse a duller ache. He uses that grip to force Remus's head down, despite the way he bucks and fights to look up at them. 

"Apologies," he mumbles, and his voice is strained and his face is very close to Roman's own. "That got away from me." 

Remus is giggling again. Shrill and frantic, until it dissolves into a chant of grotesqueries. "Yes! Please," he begs, "Open me up, touch me, take me apart- **play** with me!" 

"Remus? Veto. No cutting, not today." Janus speaks calmly, but he's watching Roman very carefully. Head just slightly cocked, waiting for a response. Modeling, Roman realizes. He forces several deep breaths, until he feels his pounding heart start to slow, and dips his chin in a tiny nod. 

"Veto," he echoes, and he's proud when it comes out steady. 

Some of the tension in Janus's spine eases. He nods back; job well done. Roman swallows hard against his dry mouth and finds a smile when Janus pats his shoulder in apology for his harshness. 

Remus only grumbles. A little miffed, maybe, but accepting. When Janus allows it he tips his head far back so he can butt his skull against Roman. " **Whatever** , Vanillapeen, just **touch** me." He butts him again, reminding Roman of some giant, perpetually horny feline. "Don't get me wrong- Snake Tails can be a sadist scaly shit when I need him to be, but he's not **you**." 

It's the sweetest thing Remus has ever said to him. Odd how Roman had never once considered that Remus might have missed him too. 

Roman pulls his brother's head back even further, enjoying the way Remus's face goes slack at the pressure. He leans down and Remus strains up, panting eagerly as the distance between them closes. Roman can smell the hot, sulfur reek of him, a mix of sweat and something acidic but earthy, like swamp mud baked dry by the sun. 

"Why..." Roman whispers, "....would I ever want to touch dumpster garbage like you?" 

The keening whimper that bursts out of Remus has Roman making a liar out of himself seconds later. The kiss is rough, a clash of teeth that bruises their lips. Roman steadies Remus with a hand on his cheek and licks his way into his brother's mouth, eyes fluttering shut when Remus sucks on his tongue. 

This close, their edges overlap. Roman can feel the vibration of his brother's thoughts, a heady, unceasing hum. Remus cranes to press closer, grunting low in his chest as he suckles sloppy and wet and rough. It feels like he wants to devour Roman, and Roman no sooner has the thought then he feels the muscles in Remus's jaw start to bunch. 

Snap. The wash of yellow stops Remus just as his teeth start to press in. "Careful," Janus mutters. 

Right. Roman pulls back, grinning mean at the way Remus tries to follow. The top of his mouth burns from the rub of his brother's mustache and his chin is slick with spit; Roman does not wipe it clean. 

"Well, I **did** say you were rabid." 

Remus's pupils are blown wide. He shimmies, hips working in tiny thrusts that seem only to frustrate him. 

From a **kiss**. 

"More," Remus hisses, "Bite off my lips, tear off my mustache and make me eat it." He shakes his head suddenly, fretfully, despite the way it yanks at his hair. When he looks back up to Roman his face is pleading. "Lick my eye." 

-the sheer strangeness of it gives Roman pause. He glances at Janus, who merely lifts a brow. 

' _Veto_?' he mouths, and Roman shakes his head. 

It's not disturbing. Just- weird, in a uniquely Remus's way. 

And this, this was meant to be a time to indulge him, as best as possible. Things had gotten vastly better since his acceptance, but all too often Remus's suggestions were still met with a kneejerk 'no'- often, to his shame, from Roman himself. 

So it's weird. So what? Roman can give his brother this much, at least. 

(He suspects that Janus gives far, far more. ' _No cutting, not today_ ,' he had said, and Roman had not missed the implication there. Not that any of it would have **damaged** Remus. He was cut from a different cloth from the rest, even Roman, too thoroughly aware of his own unreality to let mundanities like disembowelment stand in the way of a good time. Still, knowing Janus as he does, Roman wagers it must have cost him to take up the knife. Does he ever veto, he wonders? Is there any limit, to what he would do, what he would give, to see another side satisfied?)

It's easier to slide to his knees. Remus holds his eye open wide and he's trembling, mumbling a steady stream of almost inaudible fifth. Roman cradles his face with both hands and pushes back his eyelid with his thumb. 

It's tentative, just the very tip of his tongue. He's surprised to find there's no real taste, save perhaps for the faintest hint of salt. It's more a sensation, firm but a little yielding, and entirely worth it for the way Remus shivers and giggles. 

"What if you licked out my ear?" he asks, eager as a puppy presented with a treat. Roman chuckles a little. What if he did? 

Remus obligingly tilts his head. Roman nips and sucks at the lobe, then traces his tongue up the shell and nibbles on the slightly pointed tip. " **Bite** ," Remus moans, and Roman does- not hard enough to draw blood, not nearly, but more than hard enough to make Remus squeal. 

And then he plunges in. Deep, deep as he can, until the base of his tongue aches. He tries to lick and lash as best he can, but it's a tight space. There is a taste this time, a bitterness that coats his mouth in an oily film when he pulls his tongue back to snatch a breath. It makes his stomach lurch a little, but Remus is making the most delicious noises, hips juddering while he begs Roman to lick his eardrum. 

It takes only a second of focus for Roman to make his tongue long and narrow. He sets about his work with an enthusiasm that surprises him, but the grunts and groans have his own cock so hard it takes real restraint not to rub himself off against Remus's hip. 

When he finally pulls back he doesn't make Remus ask, just reshapes himself again and licks his way with broad, wet strokes across his brother's face. Remus tips his head back in offering, and Roman pushes himself up higher for a better angle. He bites and sucks at the bridge of his nose, working his way slowly down to the tip. He lingers there, pulling more squeals and whines when he **chews**. 

One last, sucking kiss, and he traces the tip of his tongue around a nostril. There's the slightest hesitation, a split second ' _ew_ ' in the back of his brain, and then Roman is pushing in. 

It's gross. There's no way around it. It's hairy and slimy and Remus isn't the only one groaning. There's something about the sheer, small depravity of it that sets Roman's blood aflame. He cleans out one side and goes straight for the other, and by time they pull apart they're both heaving for air. 

"Nasty nasty," Remus croons, and he sounds positively delighted by it. "Eat it, eat **me**. Lick my brain, spit on me-" 

Roman presses Remus's cheeks to purse his lips and spits into his mouth. He works his own jaw and lets himself drool, a long, silver strand that Remus drinks with babbling gratitude. 

The small sound of Janus shifting his weight reminds Roman abruptly that they aren't alone. He's wary when he looks over, flinching inwardly- it's one thing to go along with things for Remus's sake. Another to **enjoy** them, and he can't possibly pretend he didn't, not after that display. 

Janus smirks and waggles his brows, but his eyes are soft and fond. 

"You can eyefuck Janass later," Remus complains, "Or fuck him fuck him, you do you." He pushes in against Roman hard enough to make him flail to keep his balance. Remus, Roman is discovering, will **not** be ignored. 

He attaches himself to Roman's throat, mouthing wet just under his jaw. There is a risk- Remus, Janus had told him, was a biter- but Roman can feel the press of power keeping his brother's more bloodthirsty urges at bay. His neck had always been a weak point, and Remus, bastard rat that he is, takes full advantage, marking him with a line of bruises that Roman hopes will bloom lurid. 

When Remus reaches the collar of his tunic he snarls, taking it between his teeth and wrenching back and forth like a dog playing tug. He lets go just as abruptly. "Too many clothes," he complains, "Want to see you, feel you, crawl inside your skin, **be** you-" 

Another flex of green, and Roman barely has time to register his own nudity before Janus restores his clothes. 

"Remus." It's a hiss, drawn out with sibilant fury. Janus storms over and pushes between them, taking Remus by the hair again and pulling him to the side, until it's only that grip that keeps him from falling fully over. "You-" 

Roman lurches to his feet, more than a little mystified by the other side's ire. "Janus, it's fine." He reaches out to lay a hand on Janus's arm, frowning at the tension there, "It's no big deal, I-" 

" **No**." The intensity of it makes Roman snap his mouth shut. "We do not change others without their consent. Not their clothes, not their bodies. **Ever**." 

Realization makes Roman stiffen. They all **can** change each other, some more easily, some to a greater or lesser extent. But Roman and Remus- they can do it effortlessly, and Remus-

And there's an implication here, and it makes Roman's frown press narrow. He knows Remus would never **mean** to cross a boundary. He also knows his brother's nature, and how he struggles to control it. _'No, he doesn't join the others,"_ Janus had said in reference to the dark sides occasional group sessions, and Roman understands now why. Because only Janus had the power to control him, but he needed Remus to **try**. To show restraint in this one way, because unlike Roman, Janus had no back-up when they were together. 

And looking at Janus- Roman can see the cost of it, that push and pull. He realizes that Janus has been repressing much more than Roman knew, that it must be nearly constant- there's sweat on his brow and the corners of his eyes are pinched small. The snake eye glows faintly, pulsing slow as Janus works to keep things **contained**. 

He feels like a fool, because it isn't even just about keeping himself and Roman safe, is it? It's Thomas too, maintaining a barrier between them when Remus was in no state to do it himself. 

"Sorry, boss." Remus doesn't fight this time. Just goes limp, docile and subdued, and the regret in his tone is real. "Didn't mean to be a greedy, greasy guts. It's just...it's **Roman**." 

Janus sighs. He settles Remus back upright, running his hand gently through his tousled, sweat soaked hair. "I know," he says, "Which is why you need to take good care of him, yes?"

Remus nods violently. "Cross my heart, hope to fry, stick some needles in my taint." 

"That doesn't even rhyme," Roman says balefully. 

Janus shakes his head at them both and gives Roman a tight-lipped smile. 

"I think," he says, "It's time to move this along." 

* * *

Janus asks Remus what he wants, and from the litany has Roman pick what he's willing to do. 

If Remus had been a present before he's a buffet now. On his back in a sling, legs kept up and apart by leather stirrups, head tipped back a the perfect height and angle. He's tied with his arms folded across his chest, but Roman knows now that it's more reminder than restraint. 

Janus snaps a ring gag into existence and hands if off to Roman. "Better safe than sorry in this case," he says, "Considering I'll rather have my hand full with other things." 

"Deep deep deep," Remus chants, "Make me take it, choke me on it." He whines, jerking his head back again and again. "What if I passed out- what if I frothed and gagged and **died** -" 

Roman can see it, so clearly. Dull, glazed eyes, blue lips, cheeks blotchy with broken blood vessels. He glances across Remus's body at Janus, sees him raise his hand to snap- 

Roman pushes first. Carefully, not sure if what he plans will work but determined to try. He can't repress Remus's thoughts, can't shut them down like Janus does. 

But he **can** change them. Where their edges mingle the red touches green, and instead of Remus dead it's Remus messy and sated, gurgling on a spill of white. 

It only works because Remus allows it. Roman can feel his brother giving way, welcoming him in. Roman thanks him by strapping the gag into place as Remus opens eagerly for it, tugging hard at the straps and sticking two fingers in to pet Remus's tongue. 

When he looks at Janus again the other side's eyes are wide. His hand is still raised (the glove thin latex again and much longer, extending almost to his shoulder.) He lowers it slowly and gives Roman a nod. 

Roman can't help his grin. 

He's nude now- of his own volition- and his cock is already aching as he slides the tip through the hole of the gag. Remus laves at his slit as Roman teases him with swallow thrusts. In truth, he's not sure how far he'll be able to take things, but he knows he can veto if he needs to and neither Janus nor Remus will think less of him for it. 

Across the way Janus is busy. He opens Remus quickly, efficiently- Roman has no doubt Remus is shifting himself to help the process along. It's only a moment's work before Janus has his hand inside Remus up to the wrist. 

' _Punch fuck me_ ,' Remus had demanded, and Janus **does**. 

He doesn't start slow, doesn't work up to it. Just pulls back and pushes back in with his full weight, again and again, deeper each time. Until he's up to his elbow, and Roman wishes he could see it, the rim of Remus's hole stretched so wide. The sounds are almost enough, meaty and wet, a sucking squelch that should be disgusting but isn't, isn't at all. The sling rocks just slightly, the chains creaking, so that each thrust pushes Roman's length further into Remus's mouth. 

Roman is so enthralled in watching the muscles in Janus's shoulder work that he doesn't realize he's slowed to hitching little judders until Remus makes a garbled, pleading nose. He looks down to find his brother batting his eyelashes at him, and it makes him snort even as he rolls his hips through a heavy, punishing thrust. 

There's a wet click in Remus's throat. Roman does it again, and the way Remus chokes makes his eyes cross. He settles a hand on his brother's throat to feel it bulge, to feel Remus's hitching attempting to swallow. Janus pulls out, dripping thick, sticky globs of lube as he twines the fingers of two hands together into a cone and presses back in. Roman fancies he can see a bulge there too, in the pudge of Remus's hairy belly.

Remus's cock is flushed dark, his fat balls drawn up tight. They work him hard between them, and that cock twitches and dribbles and finally blurts out cum in long, slow spurts. 

"Keep going," Janus says, and he had informed Roman about this too, just how long it took to ensure Remus was truly satisfied. Certainly Remus doesn't soften in the least, and he cums again only moments later, this time with a high, breathless keen. 

-and the room flickers around them, a threat of unreality that makes Roman's eyes burn. He can feel Remus losing himself, the eddies and sudden twists as his thoughts unspool. The green coils around him, nudges at him, asking what if what if what if-

Roman tries not to blanch at the visions flashing behind his eyes. It's a deluge this time, most of it too fast to make sense of, but what he does see- 

He nudges back, as best he can. Adjusts this, shifts that, and he can feel Janus pressing down the rest. His admiration for the other side only grows. Janus doesn't miss a beat- he's back to one arm, in almost up to his damn shoulder- but he's showing his fangs in a tight, stressed little snarl. 

How had he ever managed this alone? There must have been times when Janus **couldn't** maintain control, when Remus steamrolled over him. It would be hard enough to handle if Roman could spare the effort his full concentration, but having his brother gagging on his cock isn't helping his focus any. 

Roman pulls out completely to watch the drool and throat slime spill down Remus's cheeks, smirking down while his brother hacks and coughs and heaves for air. 

"Freak," he taunts with great relish. "Just a repellent,putrid little **maggot**." 

He sees it then, and his belly plummets. 

"-veto." It comes out shaky, a whisper. Roman clears his throat and tries again. "Veto!" 

He's pulling at the ropes holding Remus down before Janus has a chance to snap them away, too flustered to think to do it himself. When they vanish he pulls Remus out of the sling, steadying him on his feet and prodding at him. Patting his back, rubbing at his shoulder, all of it more harshly than he means to. 

"What is it?" Janus has snapped himself clean and back into his normal gloves. He looks half-panicked, glancing between Roman and Remus with a deep, worried frown. "What happened?" 

Roman just shakes his head. "I'm sorry," he tells Remus, "Sorry, I'm- I'm so damn sorry." 

He summons a bench and makes Remus sit. Follows it by snapping a bottle into existence, only to finally remember the gag. Once that's done away with he nearly forces the water down Remus's throat. Janus grabs his wrist before he succeeds in drowning his sputtering brother. 

"What **happened**?" he demands, and his fists are clenched and he looks ten seconds away from biting out of sheer frustration. 

"He was **crying**." Roman thumbs away the tears under Remus's eyes. "I should have been watching more closely, paid more attention. He-" 

Remus manages to eel out of his grip- 

And laughs. Until he's cackling, hoarse and loud and horribly obnoxious. It breaks into snickers that makes him bend over double, clutching his sticky belly. 

"I was crying!" he wheezes, slapping at his bare thigh. "Oh. Oh, brother mine." He peeks up at Roman and that sets him off again. Remus laughs until he starts to cough, guttural and ugly. "Crying," he rasps when he can, "Fuck. You boys really do play soft serve on the other side, don't you?" 

Janus huffs through his nose and swats at Remus. It makes Roman squawk a protest, ready to defend his brother even against Janus, and the other side blinks at him in mild exasperation. 

"Remus is **fine** ," he assures, "The tearing up is involuntary. A reflex, nothing more. Trust me-" He pauses, mouth twisting into a wry smirk at his own words, "- he was **very** much enjoying himself." 

Remus snorts and bumps against Roman with his shoulder, hard enough to almost send them both toppling. "Fucking too right I was! I didn't think you'd ever have the balls to play the Cain to my Abel, but you can suffocate me on your dick anytime." 

He's grinning with far too many teeth, and the knot in Roman's chest eases so abruptly it leaves him feeling a little faint. Janus is quick to guide him over to sit beside Remus, and now Roman is the one being plied with water. Remus plasters himself against his side, and Janus tuts when his hand drifts south. 

"Let him breathe," he says. 

Remus makes a disgruntled sound and touches himself instead, pinching and tugging at his foreskin like it's a fidget toy. "Crying," he mumbles to himself and laughs like a hyena directly into Roman's ear. Roman flinches from it, but somehow it helps him steady himself. 

Remus is fine. Remus is **Remus**. 

"Better?" 

Roman nods and hands the bottle back to Janus, who chugs the rest before placing it neatly to the side. 

"We don't-" Roman is more sheepish now than anything. He ducks his head to hide the heat flooding his cheeks. "We don't usually go that rough." 

"I bet you all use baby shampoo too." Remus shakes his head when Roman looks at him blankly. "No more tears? Keep up, dingus face." 

Roman snorts, but it's not quite enough to quell his shame at the overreaction. "I **am** sorry," he tells them both, "I ruined the scene." 

Janus waves that away with a flick of his wrist. Remus just rolls his eyes with such gusto they get temporarily stuck with only the whites showing. 

"You can make it up to me," he says, and launches into a detailed list of possibilities. "You can wash my socks. You can **eat** my socks. Sort my carcass collection. I usually let the beetles strip 'em, but you can-" 

"You didn't." Janus ignores Remus with the ease of long practice, pitching his voice just a little louder to be heard. "You were concerned for Remus, and that's admirable. But I do think we should perhaps call it a day." 

Remus goes abruptly quiet at that. Roman looks over, expecting to find him pouting at Roman or glaring at Janus. But Remus is studying him quite seriously, and the only thing on his face is concern. 

"I'm good," Roman decides, "It's-" He pauses, checks in with himself to be sure of it. Nods decisively. "Yeah. I'm good." 

"Very well," Janus says after a moment of consideration, "But perhaps it will ease your mind to remember that Remus has a safe signal." 

And now Roman feels even more the idiot. It was something they'd gone over during the lecture portion of the lesson, just like they did for every side. Even with the way he had been tied, Remus would have been able to snap. If he couldn't manage that, he only needed to open and close his hand, and of course Janus would have been watching for it, because Janus was **always** watching. 

Roman slides off the bench to his feet and cuffs Remus lightly upside the head. "Alright, mongrel. I'm ready to ruin a bitch." 

This time when Remus falls apart laughing Roman joins in. 

* * *

Back in the sling, bound and spread wide, Remus has lost none of his arousal. 

Roman is a rather different story. He makes to stroke himself back to hardness and pauses, fingers wrapped around his flaccid length. 

There's an opportunity here. Why waste it? 

Janus is already back on task, alternating fists as he quite literally punches yet another climax out of Remus. Roman shuffles forward, and if he's a little queasy, a little unsure if he really means to do this- 

It isn't like he doesn't have any experience with watersports. Being marked that way, or marking someone else- he well understood the appeal. But this- this is something else entirely. And Roman isn't unaware that most of the reason he wants to go through with it is to prove something- to Janus and Remus, certainly, but also to himself. It's probably not the healthiest line of thought. 

Eh. He's done odder things for worse reasons. 

"Still thirsty?" he asks, and wiggles his cock to make his intention clear. 

It's an unholy noise that boils out of Remus, and his eyes are bright with feverish glee. It makes it so much easier for Roman to commit- or try. He has to close his eyes and really focus inward to get a stream going, and even then it's start and stop. 

The first weak, sputtering spurt splashes across Remus's forehead and darkens his hair. "Absolutely sickening," Roman growls as he adjusts, "Just a chamber pot- I should keep you under my bed and pull you out to **use** you. It's the only thing you're good for." 

He groans when he gets the aim right. Dead center in the middle of the ring, and he can see the liquid pooling on his brother's tongue. He gargles with it, and the Roman's groan goes high pitched and broken. 

Why oh why is that so damn hot? Roman's already wavering stream peters out as his cock hardens ridiculously quickly, thickening between his fingers and curving up toward his belly. He takes himself in hand and presses in through the gag, letting the head of his cock soak in his own urine. The heat of it shouldn't make him shudder, but it absolutely does. Most of it spills out before Remus forces a heavy, bobbing swallow. 

Roman starts thrusting- no restraint, pushing in to hold his cock as deep in Remus's piss soaked gullet as he can manage and **grinding** there. Janus has worked back up to two hands. He pulls out to add a third to the cone, and when he presses back in Remus's belly jumps and he arches up as much as he's able, cock dribbling a single blurt of cum. 

With his climax a shockwave ripples out. Remus torn, Remus gutted, Remus dying septic as his intestines spill out their contents- 

This time Roman can't help his wince. It's Janus who smothers it, and for the first time Roman sees him falter. He shivers, leaning his head against Remus's thigh and huffing open mouthed as he tries to catch his breath. There's a worrisome paleness around his lips, and little wonder! 

Roman is ecstatic to be there. To be able to share this with his brother, after so many years apart. But it's a simple fact that Remus is **exhausting**. Roman can feel a growing sluggishness weighing him down, and his hips are actually starting to ache. 

And for Janus- it wasn't Remus alone. It was Virgil and Sen and Annae and Remus and Roman too, because there was responsibility and weight to teaching. 

\- they really do need to move things along. 

Janus rouses himself with another wracking shiver. He nuzzles into Remus's thigh, then drops his jaws and sinks those sharp little needle fangs in deep. Remus howls around Roman's cock and cums again, and Roman has quite lost track by this point. Remus's entire belly is glazed, his pubes there matted down in thick clumps. 

Another ripple. Janus pulling out, rough and all at once. Remus prolapsing, a blossoming of cherry bright flesh between his cheeks. 

Janus looks to Roman and cocks his head. 

"...veto." 

He doesn't have a real reason. Just the squeamish clench of his gut and the wave of goose flesh that lifts on his arms. 

Instead he offers something else. Reaches out a tendril of red to pose his own what if, and the green lights up bright and shining. 

Alright then. Time to give his brother a thrill. 

Roman reaches up to grasp the chains of the sling and **hammers** in. "Take it," he grits, "You festering, diseased sore of a side-" What the hell is he even **saying**? He wants to laugh at himself, but more importantly he wants Remus to- 

"Choke on it, scum!" 

Remus is gagging and belching and the tears are **pouring** from his eyes and Roman doesn't let up, not one bit. He puts his hand on his brother's throat and this time tightens down, thumb rubbing harsh circles over his Adam's apple. He can feel Remus trying to swallow, and the convulsions around his cock are bliss. Remus's nose is streaming and his eyes are splotched red where blood vessels have burst. 

Roman watches his hands and grins when Remus manages to give him a thumbs up. 

He focuses, wincing a little at the strange, skin crawling feel of it when he makes his cock just a little longer, a little thicker. One last thrust- 

Remus's belly heaves hard and he makes an absolutely revolting noise as he vomits bile around Roman's length. The acid in it stings, and that's enough to tip Roman over the edge. He seats himself deep, and it feels like every part of him is clenched tight as he spends himself. He mutters through it, and he might be cursing, or praising Remus, or calling him all manner of names- it's all just noise and he can't hear himself anyway over the ringing in his ears.

Remus cums with him, with puke oozing down his face to stain his forelock yellow and Janus's arm lodged up his ass, and he's wretched and foul and nasty and-

Gorgeous. 

Roman rides out the last spasms of his orgasm and pulls out gently. He's unspeakably relieved to see that Remus is finally starting to go soft. He huffs out a giddy giggle of his own and looks to Janus, who is starting the slow process of extracting himself. Despite the weariness on his face Janus winks and gives Roman the nod he has come to crave. 

Job well done indeed. 

* * *

The instant Janus pulls completely free Remus unbinds himself, catapulting to his feet with a whoop. Roman is still trying to catch his breath when his brother struts over and pinches his cheek. 

"Not bad for a first time, Puke Dick." Remus's face is smeared with all manner of things; it's all Roman can do not to lean away. With the high of the moment already fading, he's starting to feel more than a little nauseous himself. 

Remus grins wolfish and swipes his fingers through the mess on his own cheek. Long experience with his brother has Roman dodging before his conscious mind fully registers the danger. 

He doesn't quite make it. 

"Oh, for-" Roman makes a complicated sound that is mostly vowels before he remembers he can snap himself clean. He takes care of his groin while he's at it, sighing in relief when the mess caked around his cock vanishes. "You're so **gross**." 

This time it isn't a compliment. Remus preens anyway. 

"Remus, stop tormenting your brother." 

Janus has claimed the bench and sits slumped, hands dangling between his knees. He speaks mildly, but there's an edge to it that makes Remus scowl and kick at the floor.

He huffs, summoning his morning star and swinging it up onto his shoulder. 

"Spoilsnake." Remus blows a far too juicy raspberry Janus's way. Saliva isn't the only thing that sprays. "Welp. I'm off to bash in some heads." He waggles his crusty brows at Roman. "Wanna join?" 

He conjures up another morning star, this one ostentatious in white and glittering gold, and waves it temptingly.

"How are you still moving?" Roman asks plaintively.

Remus rolls his eyes, no less dramatically than last time, and bounces in place. “Getting my guts reamed out always starts my day off right. I feel eight pounds lighter at least.” 

He tosses a salute Janus’s way, skips over to plant a smacking kiss on Roman’s forehead, and sinks out. 

Roman is left staring at the empty spot where his brother used to be. There's an unfamiliar feeling in his chest, something that isn't quite sorrow. He feels hollow, mostly, and unsure of what he's meant to do next.

"I did warn you," Janus says quietly.

He looks smaller, sitting like that.

"I know," Roman admits, and he's trying so, so hard to be okay with it.

Remus's version of aftercare wasn't washclothes and cuddles. After a good few hours of having his worst thoughts repressed he needed to let them run rampant, needed to hack and slash and bathe in the blood of his enemies. So it was off to the Imagination for him, leaving Roman to stand lonely.

Incomplete, he decides. He feels incomplete.

"Come along." Janus pushes himself up with a groan. He wavers once he's on his feet, and for a second or two Roman is positive he's going to pitch right over. He's no sooner taken a step forward than Janus steadies himself and offers a hand. "Let's get you taken care of."

Roman takes it on reflex. They sink out of the liminal space of the playroom and land in Roman's bathroom.

"I know," Janus says when Roman tries to protest he's already clean, "But you don't feel like you are, do you?"

That gives Roman pause because no- no, he doesn't, not really. He realizes he's been scratching idly at the smooth skin above his cock, trying to soothe the phantom stickiness there.

Janus fills the tub brimful with a wave of his hand. He closes his eyes just from that, gloved fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose. When he opens them again Roman can see the pain there- he must have one hell of a headache. The hand still holding Roman's tugs him forward.

By now Roman is well used to following Janus's lead. It surprises them both when he balks.

"You first."

Janus blinks at him, the confusion fading quickly to irritation. "Roman-"

Roman pulls his hand free and crosses his arms over his chest. "You first," he says again, then shakes his head, "Better yet, let's just get in together."

Janus folds his own arms- all six of them.

Roman sighs. Lets himself droop a little, letting one arm fall to his side to grip it with the other, a sad little self-hug. "I think it would help me feel better." He gives his head a subtle shake, bringing his bangs forward so he can peek up at Janus through them. "It's kind of getting to me, you know? Remus running off like that."

He almost- **almost** \- feels guilty when Janus grumbles, cutting his eyes between Roman and the water.

"I know what you're doing," he says, but they both also know full well that it's working.

Roman waves his own hand, calling up mounds of fluffy white bubbles. "I'll turn my back," he promises, and only smiles when Janus startles.

They've never spoken of it, the way Janus wears his clothes like armor. Even this oblique reference makes him draw in on himself and fiddle with his sleeves. Roman waits for him to look at him again before reaching slowly for the bowler, letting his hand hover without touching until Janus dips his head in offering.

He turns around as promised and sets the hat carefully off to the side, making sure it's well away from any potential splash zone. Behind him there's a snap and the soft ripple of water as Janus steps into the tub. It would be easy for Roman to spin around, to take advantage and satisfy his curiosity, and it warms him through that Janus has faith that he won't. 

There's a long, low sigh as Janus sinks into the heat. He doesn't speak, just clicks his tongue against his teeth to signal when it's safe. 

Thirty seconds, and already the other side looks blissed out. His arms rest on the sides of the porcelain and his head is tipped slightly back, eyes closed, luxuriating in the steam. 

They snap open and he straightens abruptly when Roman kneels beside the tub instead of climbing in himself. "You said-"

"Let me wash your hair first." He's already brandishing a cup of warm, bubble-free water. "It's what I would have done for Remus."

Janus glares at him even as he dips his chin to his chest and shuts his eyes. "I invented this game," he mutters as Roman wets down his already sweat-soaked hair. "I know you're aren’t so dim that you think I wouldn't see through your paltry attempts."

"Perish the thought." Roman selects a shampoo bottle at random and pours a generous amount into his hand. It's lightly floral with a citrus undertone- not what he would have chosen, perhaps, but pleasant enough. "Top drop can be quite nasty, you know. I'm simply practicing self care."

Janus's retort is lost in a breathy moan when Roman starts to work his fingers deep into his hair. He presses back into the touch, eyes fluttering shut again. Some of the suds drip down to slide across the scales that mark his bare shoulders. The left is covered completely, the right marked by random patches. They're more varied than the ones on his face, the stippling of umber and gold more pronounced- even more so on his arms, and Roman is slightly disappointed when he finds the other side is still wearing his gloves.

The scales are really quite beautiful. Roman can't imagine why he hides them. But then- Janus doesn't actually seem at all uncomfortable having them exposed. Roman keeps massaging his scalp far longer than he needs to and wonder of wonders, Janus lets him, going almost boneless and simply letting Roman do as he will. The steam has brought a high flush of color to his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose, and Roman has to sternly tell his thoroughly exhausted dick to settle.

When he finally deems it time to rinse the ever-present furrow between Janus's brows is gone entirely and his face is still and serene. Roman pours out one last cupful and settles a hand on his shoulder, running his thumb softly across the scales as he waits for the other side to rouse himself.

It's almost a full minute before Janus blinks open his eyes to blearily squint at Roman. He motions to the other side of the tub with a careless, heavy flop of his wrist, and even that little gesture seems to speak to the depths of his weariness.

"Actually," Roman says, "I am pretty tired." He doesn't need to feign a yawn- he's **beyond** tired. His very bones seem made of stone. After a few seconds Janus copies him, working his jaw to resettle it when the snake side briefly dislocates. "Let's just go to bed, yeah?"

He turns, but only briefly, vanishing the water and snapping Janus into fluffy pajamas without looking at him. He gets the other side up and into the other room, and nearly makes it to the bed before Janus starts to come out of his haze. He stiffens then, but Roman just whips back his silk sheets and bullies him down onto the mattress. 

"I'm only allowing this-" Janus has to pause to allow for another jaw popping yawn, "Because you shouldn't be alone tonight."

"You're the very picture of subterfuge," Roman assures him.

He takes a moment to summon his own pajamas before sliding in next to Janus and pulling him in against him. Janus hisses at him for the manhandling, yawns again, and lets his head drop heavily onto Roman's shoulder. He chuckles softly at Roman's little oof.

"Punishment." He's hissing his s's badly. "For-" another yawn "-thinking you could outmaneuver the chess master."

Roman reaches up to toy with his hair again, and that's all it takes. Janus gives a pleased little hum and goes limp. Asleep, or on the cusp of it.

"Yeah." Roman closes his own eyes and nuzzles in a little closer. "You sure showed me."

* * *

Thus far, Roman has been learning Janus's rules. When and where and how to touch. What to avoid.

For the first time he insists on a rule of his own.

No more playing with Remus alone.

Janus grumbles, but Roman is fairly sure it's mostly for show. He thinks there might be relief there, in the way Janus throws up his hands and agrees.

Even with the two of them, sessions with Remus are always draining. They’re also exhilarating. Roman learns all manner of new things about himself. He laughs more than he expects, experiments more than he would have ever imagined.

Still, there are some things he cannot abide. He vetoes when he needs to. Other times he steps back and lets Janus handle the physical side while he focuses on controlling his brother’s raw power. It means he sees things he'd really rather not, but that’s a small price to pay to ease a little of the burden on Janus's shoulders.

"I think we can consider you graduated," Janus tells him after one session, when they're both still slimy and aching. "Gold star, well done and all that."

He's being a sarcastic little shit, because he just can't help himself, but Roman puffs out his chest and lets himself savor the moment. He's proud. He **deserves** to feel proud. It was a quest of a different sort than slaying a dragon witch or brainstorming a video, but he feels far more fulfilled by it.

....so why does he also feel so hollow?

It's not until later, with Janus draped across him and snoring softly in his ear, that Roman identifies that ache for what it is. 

What prince ever left a quest incomplete?


	6. Janus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smutless chapter, I'm afraid- but did you really think things with Janus would be that easy?

It's Janus's own fault, really. 

He's trained Roman well. Taught him to pay attention, to look deeper and consider his fellow sides with a generous eye. To seek out the needs and plan how best to fill them.

Well, Roman **has** been paying attention. He's been watching, and he can't say he much likes what he sees.

And what he sees is Janus. Janus, who loves completely, who gives of himself without reservation. Who gives and gives and **keeps** giving. Who drains himself drain dry and **insists** on getting nothing back.

Roman can't blame the other dark sides. Not entirely, at least. Janus has trained them too- to overlook him, to view him as more tool than partner. He keeps himself covered, takes no pleasure of his own. It takes Roman weeks to realize that Janus never climaxes. He kisses but is never kissed, touches but is never touched.

He holds nothing back except, somehow, himself.

Only after Remus's sessions- when he's sore and aching and worn thin, too exhausted to pretend that he isn't- does Janus allow his mask to slip. It's a privilege, one Roman is painfully aware he could lose.

But Janus has also taught him patience, and Roman bides his time. Janus is a methodical creature. He likes repetition, likes certainty. So Roman keeps the routine the same every time, right down to the floral-citrus shampoo. It's his turn to build a space for Janus, a dependable space. 

And little by little, Janus relaxes into it. Until he's stepping into the tub readily. No snide remarks, no pretending that it's all only for Roman's own sake. Until he curls against him in the bed without even token protest, tucking his cold feet between Roman's own and nuzzling his face against his shoulder. 

Only then does Roman risk pushing for more. He's proud of himself- he has a plan. A tricky plan, suitable for a tricky snake.

The session that morning had been particularly rough. It's quite late in the evening- Janus has slept heavy and still for close to ten hours, but he's waking now, stretching languid and groaning at the pleasure-pain of it. 

Roman props himself up on an elbow and feigns a yawn. He's been awake for a good few hours, and once the thought of laying abed would have made him shudder. He's spent most of it playing with ideas for Thomas's new video, and every single one flees his head when Janus stretches again and his sleep shirt rides up to expose the pale, cream-colored scales that cover his belly. 

Janus is always adorably befuddled on waking. It takes him a good while to fully rouse himself, and until then he's groggy and pliant, blinking bleary-eyed, hair mussed into wild cowlicks. The creases of Roman's pajama top have been pressed into his cheek.

"-morning." It's a slurred little mumble. Roman chuckles.

"Evening," he corrects. He's not sure Janus heard him- he's glancing around with a furrowed brow, scrubbing the sleep crust from his eyes with a fist. Roman leans across him to pluck the bowler from the nightstand and plops it on his head, laughing again when Janus goes cross-eyed. "Hungry?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, just summons a spread that by rights should make the bed sag. This is a relatively new part of things- for many weeks Janus had scurried off as soon as he woke, citing the backlog of work that would have been building as he slept. Now he eyes the boiled eggs with relish and gulps down two whole, throwing his head back slightly as he swallows. 

He's also always ravenous when he wakes, and little wonder considering how much energy repressing Remus requires. Roman waits for him to make a good in-road on the bounty before he strikes.

"So..." Roman uses buttering a slice of toast as an excuse not to look at Janus, "When are we finishing my lessons?"

It takes the other a bit to process the question. He's still not altogether awake, and really it's cheating, asking him anything at all. Which is precisely why Roman chose now, when Janus is least likely to have his guard up.

When it finally registers Janus pauses and cocks his head, brow slowly furrowing as he tries to think things through. "'S done," he mutters around a mouthful of bacon, "Gold star, 'member?"

He pats Roman's chest with grease stained fingers, as if he's pinning said star into place. Roman catches his hand in his own. 

"I thought I was going to learn how to take care of the dark sides?"

Janus nods, bobble headed and heavy, and winces with it. Roman frowns. The headache must be lingering despite the hours of rest, though it seems to have dulled from the migraine of earlier, when Janus had barely been able to open his eyes for the pain. 

Janus yawns wide enough to show a curling forked tongue and spins a lazy finger in the air. Roman's gotten good at translating sleepy snake. He shakes his head. "No, I'm not finished," he says, "There's one dark side left, isn't there?"

He smiles, warm and coaxing and secret- then sighs when Janus only blinks at him, looking more interested in a nearby bowl of strawberries than anything Roman has to say. Maybe now wasn't the best time for this conversation after all.

Greatly daring, he reaches out to cup Janus's chin and turns his head to face him. That gets his attention, at least- he goes still, as he often does when Roman touches him in a new way, and the pupil of his snake eye constricts as he starts to come out of his haze.

"There's still one dark side left," Roman repeats,

Janus pulls away. Not sharply, but the distance is deliberate and pointed. "That will hardly be necessary." He holds up a hand when Roman makes to speak, then frowns at the stains on his gloves and snaps himself pressed and polished. "You've been an exemplary student, Roman. Let's leave it at that, shall we?"

Roman knows that **Janus** knows that he's weak to praise. It's dirty pool, using it to deflect the conversation (not that Roman has any room to complain, considering.) He pushes the warmth it brings aside and holds Janus's mismatched gaze. 

"Didn't you tell me at the beginning of all of this that taking care of the sides is a way to take care of Thomas?" he asks.

Because it was different for the dark sides- there was a reason why Janus was so careful, why his sessions with his charges carried so much more weight than sex among the lights. Roman and his fellows had the privilege of having their needs met in a myriad of ways. When Thomas praised Roman's creations, when he told Patton he loved him or listened to Logan-

It fed them, filled them, in a way the dark sides were denied. Virgil, of course, had crossed over, but he still sought Janus out, still took comfort in old ritual. Janus and Remus were known to Thomas, at least, but the relationship between them and their Centre was still a wary one, and Annae and Sen didn't even have that much. Indulging them, providing for them- only a stopgap, perhaps, but it helped make up for the lack of affirmation from the one who mattered most to them all. And that in turn helped temper their influence, making for a more stable Thomas.

Janus pushes away the tray of plates and escapes the bed. Roman frowns, vanishing breakfast so he can do the same. He's not sure why this conversation seems to have **spooked** Janus, but he knows by now how the other side looks when he's about to run.

"Congratulations," he says dryly, "You've proven you're capable of basic recall, but I fail to understand your point."

Roman wants to come around the bed and approach him. He stays where he is; making Janus feel backed into a corner isn't going to help. "My point-" It comes out a little more terse than he meant, but he's confused by how quickly things have soured. Janus looks far more irritated than comforted by Roman's concern. "-is that no one takes care of **you**."

Janus snorts, brushing the notion aside like one would a pesky fly. Roman huffs and plays his trump card.

"And that's bad for Thomas, isn't it?" It's a trump card because Janus, even more than Roman and the other sides- Janus is **for** Thomas. He wants everything for him, every single bit of candy the pinata holds. He is, and always will be, Janus's top priority. He loves the other sides utterly, but his love for Thomas is part of the nature of his function. He has no choice in it, and it is a beautiful, fearsome thing. "For Thomas's sake-" Roman presses, "You really should-"

He knows he's misstepped badly when Janus's lips press thin and his eyes narrow. This isn't irritation. This is anger, and Roman flinches from it.

"-are you accusing me of putting Thomas at risk, Roman?"

It's quiet, deadly so. Roman is quick to shake his head. "That's not what I-" Except it had indeed been what he meant. An attempt to use Thomas as a sort of a weapon, and he curses himself a fool. **Of course** Janus would take offense.

He takes a breath to steady himself. "I'm just- I'm worried, Janus," he says softly, "You push yourself so hard."

The coiling tension he senses in the other side eases. Janus softens enough to smile at Roman, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I appreciate your concern for Thomas-" And that's not right, that's not what Roman said, or at least that's not what he **meant**. "-but I think you forget that I've been doing this for a very long time. If Thomas has experienced no ill effects thus far, I think that should serve as ample proof that I have things under control, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes, but-"

"Oh, dear me, look at the time." Janus mimes looking at a nonexistent watch. "I'm afraid I have other engagements waiting. **Do** enjoy the rest of your evening, Roman."

And he's gone, leaving Roman to mutter a curse and throw out his arms in overly dramatic frustration (he always felt a little better when he played to the back of the theater.)

-what the hell just happened?

* * *

The next time they play with Remus, Roman half expects Janus to sink out directly after. He knows full well that the trust and ease he's somehow earned is tentative is best.

Janus stays, but there's new tension in his shoulders when he bends his head so Roman can rinse his hair. They lay side by side in the bed, a careful gap of three inches between them. For the first time it feels as if Janus really is there only as a substitute for Roman's brother. 

Roman wants to apologize- even if he's still not entirely sure what he **did** \- but he knows that words will not sway Janus. He's too aware of how they can be twisted, the things they can hide. So Roman turns back to patience and proves himself steady all over again. It takes weeks before Janus unwinds and leans into Roman's hands instead of merely tolerating his touch.

Even then Roman waits a few months longer before he tries again- there's no rush, after all. Janus is right- he's been doing things his way a long, long time, and even though Roman can see the cracks Janus is far from broken. He thinks the wiser course would be to make peace with what he already has, these rare days when Janus lets him in. 

Roman had never been known for his wisdom. 

Plan A was, charitably, a disaster. Plan B- Roman is **certain** it will work. He simply needs to show Janus how much it hurts, to watch someone you care for run themselves ragged.

These days Roman splits his time between the darks and the lights. He never misses the monthly famILY orgy, and he partners one on one with the other light sides as whim and desire dictates. 

The dark sides, of course, are on a more rigid schedule because Janus insists upon it. At last twice a month for each, and more if Janus deems they need it, as he very often does. Roman takes over whenever Janus allows it or whenever they ask for him (never noticing how Janus stiffens, how he turns aside without a word- but then why would they, considering the other things they miss?) Remus they handle together once a week- though Remus himself would have gladly played daily. As much as Roman loves his brother, the mere thought makes him blanch pale.

He starts off subtle. Wrestles Sen in the morning and joins Patton for a scene in the evening. Fucks Remus down and lets Logan experiment the next day, instead of taking the weekend for himself like he normally would. He means to build it up, taking on more and more over a span of months. 

Janus calls him on it in the second week.

"You're cut off." No preamble, just Janus with one set of hands on his hips and the others folded across his chest. Annae looks between the pair of them and finds an urgent need to be elsewhere. 

Roman sputters. "We were just about to-" 

"Your 'famILY' night was yesterday." The finger quotes Janus uses around the word are only slightly mocking. "You need to rest."

Roman sits down on the edge of the sensory tank and folds his arms mulishly, mirroring Janus’s own straight-backed posture. "Annae had a rough day. He needs-" 

"You're sitting out tomorrow too," Janus cuts in.

Roman bristles for real at that, popping up to his feet. The tank wavers as his concentration leaves it, and Roman dismisses it and the rest of the playspace with a wave. "Remus-"

"Survived without you for many years, I'm positive he'll manage one day." 

Janus sighs when Roman flinches. Four arms disappear, and the two that remain drop to his sides. They stand facing each other in an empty white room, a liminal space awaiting instruction. 

"I appreciate that you want to take care of them," Janus says, "But you need to mind your own oxygen mask first."

Roman gapes at him. 

Janus's expression takes a complicated journey through exasperation to concern to outright alarm. "Roman? What-"

Roman badly wants to shake him. "Mind my- damn it, Janus, when was the last time you took a **breath**?"

Another misstep. Janus's eyes go shrewd, and he cocks his head in the way Roman has learned means he's mulling something over.

"Ah," he says, almost to himself, "I see."

Shit.

Roman starts to apologize. Again, for what he's not quite sure- but then Janus looks at him, and what right does the bastard have to look **disappointed**?

"If this is about Thomas again-” 

Roman explodes.

"It's about you!" He levels a finger at Janus's face, growling low when the other side doesn't look the least intimidated. "You- you're a bloody hypocrite, Janus! Self care my royal ass!"

He takes a step forward, and he knows he's looming, knows this isn't the right way to handle any of this. They're both stubborn. They both have tempers. This is going to get ugly if it escalates.

-but he's just so blasted angry!

Because there are circles under Janus's eyes like bruises, and last week, after Remus- another migraine, one that left him curled sick and miserable on the bathroom floor. And he has the gall to stand there and tell Roman to put on **his** mask **first**?

He says as much, almost snarling the words. 

"I think you'll find-" Roman already knows that when Janus is angry he goes **quiet** , and this is a whispered hiss, "-that it is you who have no right to lecture **me**."

And now Janus steps forward, and Roman gives way, unsettled by the cold fury in that narrowed yellow eye. Ancient instincts bring up the hairs on his nape when Janus scoffs and flashes his fangs.

"You are a **passenger** . For the dark sides, I'm the one **flying** the damnable plane."

-wait.

"That's just another reason to put on your own mask first!" Roman protests.

Janus waves that aside. "It's a silly metaphor anyway. The-"

"-you're the one who-"

"-reality is that I don't have **time** ," Janus bites out. He deflates, suddenly and completely, scrubbing a hand over his face as his shoulders sag. His anger, even more than Roman's, is a flash fire thing, quick as the strike of a snake and then done. "Managing lies, hiding the things Thomas doesn't want to know- trying to stop Thomas from breaking, and he's been so close for so long-" He laughs, and it's harsh, a dry, raw bark. "And my boys- you've always had a seat at the table, Roman. You don't know what it's like. They **need** me."

Roman's own anger is replaced by sorrow and sharp edged guilt. He'd been assuming all along it was stubbornness, some twisted form of self harm, but he sees it now for what it is.

Survival.

Even for the light sides- the last few years had been rough for Thomas, and before that? High school, college, coming out. Thomas has had his tribulations, his dark nights of the soul. He's finally in a better place, thanks in no small part to Janus's own efforts, but reaching that balance-

It had been hard enough for the light sides, despite their vaulted spot at the table. How much worse, then, had it been down in the dark?

"Thomas isn't breaking down anymore," Roman says gently. 

Janus blinks at the non sequitur. "I- what?"

Roman moves slowly to take Janus's hands in his own, and Janus allows it with a bemused frown. "Thomas isn't breaking down," Roman repeats, "He's just landed that big call back, he's saying no when he needs to-" Gosh, just a few days ago he'd told Terrance he couldn't pick him up from the airport, and wasn't that a marvel! "He's doing better. Pretty great, actually. And he'll be even better than that when Remus and I help him nail the part."

It's habit, this weight that Janus carries.

"As for your boys-" Roman squeezes the hands in his own gently. "Remus and Virgil have a seat at the table now, remember?"

Still tentative, for Remus, but Thomas, bless him, has been trying. Certainly it's going to take **all** of his Creativity to earn Thomas a role as a cold-blooded murderer.

"Sen and Annae-"

It's a weak retort. Janus's brow is furrowed, and it furrows deeper when Roman laughs softly.

"Even if Thomas isn't ready to meet them yet- and I disagree on that, by the way- they do have a seat up top whenever they want to visit," Roman says, "Wasn't part of all of this about getting **all** of us used to each other?"

Janus shakes his head. "They aren't-"

"They **are** ready," Roman tells him, "You're worried they'll get hurt, I know, but the light sides- we've gotten better too." He ducks his head so he can catch Janus's lowered gaze, holding it unblinking. "Patton and the others- they won't hurt them. They don't want to, and I wouldn't let them if they tried."

Janus shakes his head, but there's more confusion than denial in it. He looks bewildered. He looks **lost**. 

It's habit, ingrained over decades. Change, even positive change- it's a scary thing, as Roman well knows. He releases Janus's hands to take him by the shoulders and tugs, testing. It's a relief when Janus lets himself be pulled in, though he shakes his head again, biting at his lip with sharp fangs before he speaks.

"Roman-"

"Hush-" Roman presses a kiss to Janus's forehead, right at the division between skin and scales. It's soft, the barest brush, but he lets his lips linger there. "You're not doing this alone anymore. Let me be your mask, okay?"

-in his defense, it sounded better in his head.

He freezes with his lips against Janus's forehead. There's a frail little bubble of silence, and Roman dares to hope-

Janus snickers.

It breaks into giggles, and then to a proper, deep-in-the-belly chortle. It makes him snort, and that sets Roman off, even though he's blushing wildly. They end up leaning against each other, both cackling like fools, and it feels so damn good.

"I'll be your mask," Janus mimics in Roman's own too-dramatic tone, and promptly falls apart all over again, burying his face in Roman's shoulder as he wheezes. Roman cuffs him gently upside the head. 

"I was **trying** to be heroic," he complains, and Janus pulls back and looks at him with such fondness that Roman's own laughter dies on a gasp. 

"My hero," he says, and there's no mockery in it. Roman has never witnessed Janus smile like this, soft and maybe a little wistful. The laughter has brought a blush to his cheeks, flushing his scales a darker viridian, and his eyes glitter bright. 

' _Gorgeous_.'

He sweeps into a bow and offers a hand, peeking up and waggling a brow in invitation. Janus scoffs and rolls his eyes, but takes it, chuckling again when Roman pulls him flush against him. A thought transforms the room around them. Not a grand ballroom but the little dance studio Thomas had spent a clumsy few months attending in his youth, with its smudged mirrors and barre stained by countless hands. Music swells, something generic and full of harps; Roman is far too entranced watching Janus to spare the concentration for anything more elaborate. 

“Let me be your mask,” Roman singsongs as he guides them in a waltz, “Let me keep you afloat." He lifts Janus by the waist in demonstration, grinning when Janus gasps and slugs him on the shoulder. "Let me pamper you, treat you-" He drops his voice to a growl, the faux seduction of a bad pick-up artist. " **Please** you-"

He's angling for another laugh. But Janus falters, the slightest little stumble on a turn, and his grip tightens on Roman's waist. 

"Janus-?"

The other side refuses to meet his eyes.

"Roman-" It's tentative, unsure in a way Roman struggles to reconcile with sarcastic, confident Janus. "There's something you don't know-"

Oh. Relief makes Roman puff out a sigh. "Is that all?" he asks as they spin, "Whatever's in your pants, I don't care. I-"

He realizes his mistake only when Janus pulls them both up short, so abruptly it makes Roman stagger. His eyes are very wide, and he's staring at Roman like he's never seen him before.

"Hey-" This isn't a misstep. "That was-" It was Roman jamming his foot so far down his throat he could kick his own ass. It was crossing a line, and really Roman ought to have known that Janus would want to reveal his secrets in his own time. "It's okay, though! Seriously, it doesn't matter. Whatever it is, it's **fine**."

"How do you even-"

"You wince," Roman tells him apologetically, "Every time."

He'd picked up on the pattern early on, but it had taken him much too long to put the pieces together and understand what it **meant**. He's tried not to speculate too much (it can't be two dicks, either snake or human, because Remus has asked for both at times and Janus had winced then, too), but he's certain of one thing. Janus does not possess the same equipment as the rest of Thomas's sides and must create it anew each time.

-but is that really that surprising? The rest of them were either Thomas, or mostly so. The animal traits of the other dark sides were far more limited. But Janus with his extra arms, his scales that covered fully half his body- he had always been a little less Thomas than the rest. A little more **other**. Roman knows Logan has pondered it, though if he's ever come to a conclusion he's never deigned to share it.

"Clever," Janus admits, and Roman doesn't at all like his expression. He wonders if Janus is more upset over the nature of the secret or simply because something he has sought to hide has been ferreted out by Roman, of all people.

"That was terribly uncouth of me," he says, "You don't need to say anything else about it." He leads them back into the dance, and for a moment they waltz in silence. Janus still looks a little distant, mechanically going through the motions.

Roman dips him, which works well enough to jolt him out of his thoughts. “I truly am sorry," he says, wincing a bit at the yellow clad fingers that are digging into his shoulder. "Though really- **you've** been the one telling me to watch."

It's a weak attempt at a joke. A ploy at diffusing things, as his earlier gaffe had. Instead Janus stops them again, and this time his hand slides away from Roman's waist. Dance over, then, damn it all.

"Oh?" Janus says, too mildly, "And pray tell, what else have you seen?"

The pupil of his snake eye is pulsing, drawing narrow and flexing wider. Roman starts to say nothing, nothing at all. To reassure Janus he's a cipher, an enigma wrapped in a snake skin mystery. It's what he seems to want, after all.

"I thought it was your scales at first," he says instead, "That you might be nervous, or even ashamed."

So far he's been trying to beat Janus at his own game, and he's been failing miserably at it. Maybe trying to trick a trickster was never the right tactic to take. 

And that just leaves the truth.

"But that's not it, is it?" Roman reaches out, telegraphing the motion to give Janus time to pull away. When he doesn't Roman traces the seam of his snake's jaw, delicate enough to make him shiver. "I'm so glad-" His thumb smooths over a high cheekbone, feeling the silky texture of the interlocking plates. "-because they're stunning. I couldn't bear the thought that you didn't know that already."

Janus's pupil snaps thin, then dilates hugely when Roman leans in. "Of course-" He has to stop to clear his throat, "Of course I know it. Someone has to show the rest of you how it’s done.” 

Had any other side dared to imply Roman was the lesser beauty he would have stomped, would have waxed lengthy and poetic about his own fair self. Now he only hums agreement.

“Let’s see-” He pretends to consider things, thumb still tracing tiny circles on Janus’s cheek. “What else do I know about you?” 

"I know you love your boys **fiercely** ," Roman says, "I know you keep them well." There's a bit of a tease in his tone at first, but it turns solemn as he continues. "I know your nose crinkles when you laugh. I know that you snore and won't admit it. I know you're not venomous, but you pretend that you are. I know you say you like your coffee black and dump sugar in it when no one is looking."

He could go on. For hours, all the little things he's learned. 

"I know I care about you," he says, "Not because of Thomas, or because of what you do for the dark sides. I care about **you** , Janus."

He wants to kiss him. 

Janus kisses him first.

It's messy and delicious and over before Roman can settle into it. Even so it leaves him gasping.

“Very well,” Janus says, and his smirk is positively dangerous, “You win.” 

"I- um-" Roman shakes his head in an attempt to clear it. "-what?"

A forked tongue flickers against Roman’s neck, making him shiver and close his eyes. He opens them again when something is set atop his head. Janus’s bowler, he learns when he reaches up to touch it. Startled, he looks to the other side with wide eyes and finds him leaning in, so close he’s out of focus. So close his warm breath eddies against Roman’s lips.

“ **Please** me,” Janus purrs.


End file.
